leo the not blooming at all, ever

when i was little, i stopped growing, but that was just the tip of the iceberg i was about to run afoul of. it was a condition that totally dominated my life, in all sorts of ways other people didn't seem to realize, and had to get daily shots, but i just had to hang in there.

i always had the idea that i just needed those shots to catch up with everyone else.  i learned to be very patient ..but it never happened.  i reached my full height, but still looked very young.  i looked maybe 14, when i was in my twenties.  now i've got greying hair, and bags under my eyes, so i'm not mistaken for a teenager anymore, as long as the lighting isn't too bad.  now i'm just this juxtaposition of young and old that really isn't an improvement.

it's never going to be an improvement.  i spent 30 years waiting to grow up, only to realize it wasn't going to happen.  i just get to skip being an adult, right into getting old - but i'm not really talking about my appearance.

i don't know exactly why this seems to be both physical and psychological.  maybe it's just development gone awry, but i think it could be a hormonal issue.  much the way certain stages are triggered in muscle and bone development.  there could be neurological changes that medical science doesn't even know about, yet.  young adults certainly go through changes.  it isn't really that far fetched to suspect there may be some biological factors to those personality changes.

it would then be an even further stretch to pin that all on growth hormone, but given the way it physically plays into aging.  given psychological problems i've had a hell of a time ever making heads or tails of.. just maybe there is something substantial to this feeling i have, that i can't for the life of me figure out how to grow the hell up.

maybe there's nothing to figure out.  i'm not going to be a late bloomer.  i'm not going to catch up.  somehow, that feeling i had, of waiting, of my problems being temporary, of just needing to ride it out.  somehow that seems to have stayed with me.  it's been horrifying to realize that no, that was it.  that was my adulthood, and it's very likely to just go downhill from here.

the worst part of all this is really that it's an excruciatingly lonely isolating state to spend my entire life in.

nocturne

nan was talking earlier, about how she stays up late, because that time after dinner is the only down time she has.  despite needing to be up at 5am, after a hard days work, she cherishes that time, and loathes the prospect of skipping it just to get to bed earlier.

i, of course, thought, yeah, i know what you mean.  i feel the exact same way.  not to be unsympathetic, of course i don't respond this way.  it just got me thinking.  i do feel similarly, odd as that may seem.

except instead of actually working, i just spend all day stressed out and exhausted for no reason.  instead of just staying up until midnight, i'm more inclined to stay up all night, dreading that i'll have to face the next day at all, ever.

i spend enough time wondering why i feel terrible, but maybe the bigger mystery is why i feel better at night.

sometimes, i miss the days when i'd entertain explanations such as just maybe, i'm too empathically sensitive to other people.  that all day, i feel barraged from all sides, by the stress and exhaustion of all the work they're doing.  as they finally relax and go to sleep, it feels like such a relief.

more likely though, it's psychological.  people going about their lives makes me really anxious. i feel especially terrible about not having a life and just vegetating all day, while they're all running around.  once it's dark, and they're winding down and going to sleep, the pressure to get my own shit together subsides.  not like there's much anyone can expect me to do at 2am, anyhow.

another possibility turns out to be that it could be biological.  there are natural changes in hormones like cortisol and gh, at night.  that's part of what makes normal people mostly diurnal.  it's still a guess, but it would be the simplest explanation of all.  i prefer to be up all night, because i just feel like it.

come to think of it, i suspect that's the explanation at the core of a whole lot of what we do.  we like to pretend it's more cerebral than that, but i'm having some serious doubts.  we follow our biological imperatives, we take the opportunities we can, and mostly just use reason to explain why everyone else is doing it wrong.

life is too hard

for the longest time, i tried to embrace my problems, i tried to spin all the difficulties i've had in life, in a positive way.  it seemed a whole lot better than feeling sorry for myself.  i guess it's been somewhat alienating though, to be proud of the kind of person i've been.

e.g. i'm not a night person for any special reason, i just find it a hell of a lot easier to cope with being me, when everyone else is asleep.  is it better or worse, for me to be honest about that?

maybe i've even given the impression that these were choices i've made, but come on.  who in their right mind would choose to live this way.  i'm just trying to survive.  i don't understand why that's so much to ask.  i don't think it's particularly realistic to strive for a whole lot more than that.  i'm barely holding on, as it is.

i am feeling especially depressed lately.  my endocrinologist wasn't very optimistic about insurance covering my treatment.  not that i don't need it, but that it's especially rare and expensive means a much higher bar, as far as defining medical necessity to my insurance provider.  i was hoping some progress had been made on that front.

mark my words, someday soon, it's going to be common knowledge just how important hormones are, even to who we are.. but i guess we're not quite there, yet.  the problems i've had all my life are still being chalked up to my weakness of character, as far as our nation's health care system is concerned.

i guess that's been dragging me down.  i may need to face that this is my life.  i can try to hold onto it, or not, but that's about it.

my morning walk to umdnj

my endocrinologist appt was today.  i had to catch the 6am train to newark, and then walk a mile and a half through the quaint little town that it is.  but i got there.  only to find out they had no record of me.  no record of my appt.  whoever took the appt screwed up.

something to do with one building not being able to make appointments for another building.

i'm not sure what the big deal was, given that as i listened to others checking in, i realized that everyone in the room had an appt to see the same doctor, at the same time.  as i was supposed to.  and maybe not coincidentally, it's also when the place opens.  i got the impression they don't really have an appointment system, per se.

and yet, now i have another appt next week.  i'm not sure this one was made properly either, because i didn't have the referral on hand, to give all the info necessary, but was told they could fill it in later.  i'm not sure if i'm supposed to call to fill that in or just show up with the referral at the appointed time.

i should have asked, but i just wanted to get the hell out of there, before i started yelling, "are you fucking kidding me," at the nurse who wasn't the one that did anything wrong.

this is too much like what happened last time, in pittsfield.  i'm trying, but i'm exhausted, and they just keep throwing up roadblocks, every step of the way.  seems like the most expensive healthcare system in the world spends most of its resources on trying to discourage people from getting any health care.

oh, and on a related note, i'm now being spammed with insurance and health provider info... from the state insurance system in Illinois.  Yeah, would have been really nice to have gotten that a few years ago.  Like, when I was originally approved for it.  While I still lived there.

happiness is...

If life's a bitch, what are we really missing if we just get straight to the dying part?  In Buddhism, life is suffering, but the source of that suffering is craving, the perpetual wheel of discontent, that really has a whole lot less to do with us personally than we tend to think.

Craving, though, comes from the view that things can get better.  That even if we're not happy at the moment, we can be, if we just work at it.  Life may be suffering right now but hang in there, it'll be worth it.

It can even look like craving is all that keeps people thinking they're happy.  Most people seem to be at their happiest, when they think they're going to be.. soon.  When they finally do get what they thought was so important, it slips by so quickly, and they're already thinking about what will really make them happy, next.  In the culture I'm familiar with, it sure looks like the happiest people are the ones who crave the most, and the miserable people are the ones who can't find any reason to believe things can ever get better.

Of course, looks are often deceiving, but on closer inspection, I've simply found that sometimes it's true, sometimes not.  Buddhism is all about making peace with the moment, regardless of circumstances.  It seems to work for some, better than others.  Materialism is all about getting excited for whatever new toy you talk yourself into looking forward to next, and that also seems to work for some, better than others.

I'm not really sure what to make of all this.  Being the miserable curmudgeon that I am, I've been trying to figure it out, all my life.. People have all sorts of explanations for why they are the way they are, and how well it works for them, but nobody's been able to offer up a whole lot of solid evidence that their rhetoric actually helps anyone else.

Lately, it sure looks like it's mostly just a lot of nonsensical misinterpretation of conditions almost entirely biological, in nature.  This is still a leap of faith though.  It's just the explanation with the least gaping holes in it.

This would all be pretty funny, if I weren't too overwhelmed by my own present circumstances to laugh about it.

cognitive behavioral stigma

If my self-esteem is a bit lacking at times, maybe it has something to do with how others seem to view my situation.  Most are a pretty far cry from enlightened on the subject of mental health, but especially during my formative adolescent years, people were pretty hard on me.

Given how little was known about my condition, it's somewhat understandable.  I was not behaving in a healthy way, and no one understood why.  It makes some fairly obvious sense to attempt to correct that behaviour, right?  Even making sure to get it through my head how very wrong I was to insist on being the way I was?

There's even a whole school of psychology devoted to the idea that mental health can be remedied by healthier thoughts and behaviours.  Certainly, there's a measure of indisputable truth to that, but its limits and dangerous side-effects tend to be ignored.  Of course, it can seem incredibly harmless.  Just smile more, you'll feel better.  Think more positive thoughts, engage in more positive activities.  How could any of that be bad?

It's bad when you think it's a real solution, for serious underlying problems that are not going to be solved that easily.  It can create a dynamic of stigma, where the person who fails to follow such advice, or even just fails to find success in it, becomes at fault for that.  It risks blaming the victim for being responsible for their own plight.  Even when there's a degree of truth to that responsibility, anyone who actually cares, might want to consider treading carefully when going there.. or at the very least, try to be sympathetic when said advice doesn't exactly pan out.

So much of how the mind works is still beyond the scope of modern medical science, but that's not really much of an excuse for ignoring the harm that good intentions can cause.  Before it was even considered how pituitary function might play into mental health, it was clear that I had serious problems, and no one had any idea how to help me.

Now that it's better understood, and I've done my best to highlight that as a very likely contributor, at the very least, it makes even less sense to point out my behavioral issues.  Granted, to an observer, it sure looks like the problem is that I don't do anything, but whatever the cause, that has a whole lot to do with the crippling mental conditions I've been trying to navigate my entire life..  Even after all this, I still feel like I'm locked away in an invisible prison no one really believes in.

Take away this crushing weight, and of course my behaviour will change.  I sure as hell don't like living this way, but an emphasis on changing behavior would be putting the cart before the horse.  It's an understandable attitude, but its just not very realistic, exposes a lack of sympathy for the gravity of what I'm actually dealing with, and reinforces blame, when I'm already pathologically prone to blaming myself.

whatever, man

One reason weed helps me feel better seems to be that it elicits a feeling of being ok with who I am.  As anyone versed in any sort of mental health reality can tell you, that's kind of a big deal, but all the more so, when we're talking about anxiety/depression issues.

How it works this way, I'm not sure.  Neither the mechanism by which it works, nor even if this is a direct reaction, or more the consequence of something else - e.g. If I'm more forgetful, does this include forgetting what I'm supposed to be so down on myself about?  Or does it have something to do with THC stimulating cortisol levels?

There are also nuances to it that still elude me, such as how it can make a world of difference to some moods, but be completely useless for others.  That is, certainly not a psychological cure-all, and possibly explaining why some people like it more than others - maybe depending on what sort of chemical balance they're naturally prone to.. but I'm not even sure what it does cure, exactly.  Only that when I'm stoned, my superego feels a bit more on my side.

This isn't entirely a good thing.  Painkillers can be invaluable, but pain does serve a purpose, too.  It's nature's system for warning against circumstances which have proven to be detrimental for survival.  It is our way of getting the message that we might be doing something wrong.  That we should be trying to change.

This is a major element of the human condition.  That we should always be trying to change.  To improve our situation, to make ever more of what nature gives us, from mud huts to skyscrapers.  We seem to take it a step beyond every other animal, that just relaxes, when they're not actually feeling the physical pangs of hunger, exposure, or fear of some other imminent danger.   As humans, we think bigger, we know there are always potentially imminent dangers, even when on any given day, our lives have been pretty safe and uneventful.

We seem to have a deeply rooted aversion to being content.  We have a whole lot of other words for pretty much the same thing, with much more negative connotations.  Statistically speaking, reality is a pretty dangerous place, and this has a lot to do with why we've improved on that dramatically over the past few millennia.  I'm not exactly attempting to pose an argument against any of that.

I'm just saying, it has it's pros and cons.  Sometimes it's important to work for something, to achieve what we can.  A certain amount of work ethic is definitely a good thing, but sometimes it's also important to recognize our limitations and the reality of our situation, and learn to be ok with it.  I believe there's a cliche that goes something to that effect, but I don't think people generally apply it inward, to the circumstances of who we are.  We'd rather think we can be anyone we want, yet still make the, honestly questionable, decision to be ourselves.

Mental health can do a real number on that illusion, though.  It can force us to be more realistic about aspects of ourselves that we'd normally prefer not to face.  "Being yourself" becomes unacceptable.  As if there's a real difference between the chemical imbalance differentiating an illness from the myriad of chemical balances defining all of us.

 We should all strive to make the most of what we can, but not to the point of thinking that improvement absolutely must happen.  It's important to strive for the future, but not so emphatically as to hate the present.  Not only does that suck in itself, but it's self-defeating.  It sabotages the mental state often necessary to make any healthy progress.

So maybe for some, cannabis can lead to lazy apathy, but for me, I think it helps achieve a more acquiescive balance, where I don't hate my life so much as to think I'd be better off without it.  I'm pretty sure that's a good thing, and believe me, it's been very far from the first thing I've tried.