Shane's blog

Fog

I feel like I've wakened into a whole new attitude. I've been walking around in a fog the past few days. I honestly have no idea what has been wrong with me. I'd wake up and feel like I was still asleep. My brain was just shut off. I blogged about the smoking thing and having 2 minds but I really wasn't into it. I drank my normal amount of coffee. I drank my normal amount of tea. I ate a little food. Everything just seemed out of place for me. I hate days like that. I can't remember a lot of things I'm supposed to. I don't get things accomplished. I don't hardly know my own name. I seem to be having more and more days like that too. It's disconserting. I think I'll be telling my shrink about it. If she says I'll be fine then I guess I'll look into some other explaination for these lapses in reality. My phone keeps messing up on me today and I have some important calls to make. I have a friend in KY that is having a lot of problems with his daughter. She's having a severe 5 day migraine evidently. She hurts so bad that most of the drugs they put her on don't work. Nobody seems to know what the deal is either. He's a good friend so I'm worried about both of them. He has a lot of health issues of his own to worry about too. He has a hernia that has grown into his bladder.He's got very thick blood and that keeps giving him strokes. He's 1 very messed up dude. I hope today goes well because I'm finally in a position to do something with it.

2 Minds & Smoking

I feel like I have two minds today. One's lost and the other is out looking for it. I kind of feel like I'm wandering in a fog really. I've had a few things happen this week that bummed me out or pissed me off but I didn't let them really stick with me to bother the rest of my life. I have been in a great mood the past few days. I got talked to last night about my smoking again. Deb says that I don't Love her enough to quit again. That hurts because it's not a matter of Love or not as to whether I quit or not. I quit for her about 7-8 yrs ago. It lasted 3 yrs. I still went back. I really couldn't deal with life without my smokes. I missed them a lot. Deb asked me to start smoking my pipe with aome "Holy Smoke" in it during the time we had this geography class. Then it was a cigar once in a while so she could enjoy the smell. The smell helped her calm down in preparation for class. It helped me too. I was actually doing fine tho. At the time, just before we ended up in that class, I wasn't even thinking of smoking. As the class got worse and worse, it got harder to deal without a smoke or two a day. Then the old habit just kicked back in from there. Deb got mad at me because I would go out on the porch and smoke even without her or class. I still don't know what she really expected. I always enjoyed smoking. It's not easy for me to find anything I'm good at that relaxes me. Smoking fits that bill pretty well. She spent weeks mad at me because I had gone back to smoking. That was 5 yrs ago that I started back. Now I have a pregnant daughter that has been put on inhalers so she can breathe right and Deb complains of burning in her lungs from my cigar smoke. I smoke in the house for several reasons. 1: It's my house so why should I be punished just because nobody else smokes? 2: It's either too hot or too cold outside to smoke out there. My lungs aren't the best after smoking for 30 yrs basically so I can't take extreme temperatures. 3: I find it comforting to be in my own environment to do things that make me even more comfortable. I'm not trying to hurt anybody but myself but everybody else seems to be getting the worst of this deal. I don't want to quit so I know that anything I try is not going to help me kick the habit. In order to put down any habit you have to want to. My old shrink said that the real reason I smoke is because I'm trying to kill myself slowly. Maybe that's true, maybe not. I know I'm not in a real hurry to die but I don't like my life most days because of all the bad things that keep happening in it. I Love most of the people in it tho. I love a lot of the others too. My life has a soundtrack and most of the songs I listen to remind me of times when I smoked and enjoyed life. I don't enjoy much in my life these days but Deb and sometimes the kids and my cigars are about the best parts of it. Most people that quit talk about all the bad things like the smell of ashtrays and butts and other people's smoke. I never had that problem. None of those things bothered me after I quit. None of those things bother me now either. I smell a musky, smokey smell when I walk into my bedroom after being out of it for a while and I find it a pleasant smell. Am I such a terrible person because I enjoy something that the people in my life find repugnant? I still don't think I should be punished for my smoking. If I were to quit today, would I be any different of a person? Would I be any better of a person because I don't smoke? I don't think so. I don't think smokers are any different than anybody else. They have something in their lives that they enjoy doing because it relaxes them or just gives them a better sense of wellbeing. Does that make them terrible people because a lot of other people don't find the same feelings in the same things? I hope not.

Gotta Blog

Today started out.... no it didn't, it never ended from last night. My son, Tony, walked his friend home last night around 11. At 4 AM I get a call from her that he is laying in her yard unable to breathe clearly and can't walk. My Deb and I get ready to go get him. We have no vehicle so my son-in-law elected himself to take me to get Tony. He dropped us off at the hospital and before he left I told him to have mom come back with my phone and the truck so we could get home. He came home with 2 friends that he found on the street and said nothing to mom at all. I called after about an hour to find out why she wasn't there. She told me she had no idea what had happened to us because sil went back out the door right after getting home and didn't say anything to her at all. I ended up having to call the local police to see if they could take me and my, now stoned, son home. When the cop showed up he asked why he was called to take us home. I explained everything to him and told him he might want to wait a few minutes if the sil was there. He said if he got called back he'd come. We got home and no sil. The little asshole had left to blow out the $5 in gas my son William had just loaned to me to get us to the hospital and home. I waited for the asshole to get back and he finally did. I jumped right in the middle of his ass with my voice. I never threatened him, nor did I tell him lets fight. Those were his first words however. In reality, where most people live, that's called assault folks. Then he continued to rant about calling a cop. I begged him to call. My daughter, pregnant daughter, begged him to calm down and shut up. I really was hoping he'd call the cops. They were expecting to come back to my house afterall. I would have been overjoyed to let them know of his threats and assault. This is MY house so I have the advantage even if I threw his stupid ass out on the spot, physically. Some people will never learn humility till someone shows them the error of their ways. If not for my daughter's tears, I'd have given him his first lesson that his parents never taught him. His parents never taught him anything in the way of manners anyway. The kid is a complete asshole and it will do him good to spend time in jail and I have the suspicion that that will happen rather soon. My daughter has had the upper hand since she's been pregnant but she wont be pregnant much longer and his temper will get the better of his judgement. It will be nice to see him behind bars. I'm just wundering how long it will take for him to learn to watch his temper and his mouth. Hopefully a long time behind those bars. The last thing my granddaughter needs is an unmedicated bipolar asshole in her life. That goes for my daughter as well.

AMs

I sit here every morning listening to tunes from NY and playing on the computer. I get up early and I'm the only one that does. Deb sleeps till at least 10:30-11 and the kids have no idea what a sunrise looks like from this standpoint. I think they know what it is from a "time to go to bed" standpoint. I get lonesome sometimes but if I wake anybody up I'll pay for that the rest of the day. Today I woke up in a very pitiful mood. Our car died on Friday and we had to sit in the heat for about 2 1/2 hrs till the tow truck got there. I was a mess when I got home. Hot, sweaty, shaking, thirsty and tired. I wanted to cry but couldn't. I wanted to go blow up what was left of my car but if I do that I'll be in trouble too. We have the worst luck with vehicles lately. We owned a van for 6 yrs. We had to put a lot in it to keep it going but it did last 6 yrs. Every car we've tried owning since has died on us. Blown motor this time. I was thinking of blogging about my pity party yesterday but decided against it. Today it's not a pity party, I just keep wondering why. Why is it that our lives keep going to shit all the time? We don't owe money on the car exactly. We owe money on getting it fixed last time. It needed a water pump and it took over $400 to get it fixed. My regular mechanic was generous and let us make payments. I still owe over $300. It's just another bill we can't afford. We're in debt to I don't know how many people right now. We even put off our house payment so we could get other things paid and we still owe. My AMs are spent thinking about all this shit in my life. I can't escape any of it. I can't even escape it in my sleep because I dream of people showing up at our door to take our kids as collateral. Fun huh? Deb wonders why I smoke so much. I think it's because I'm hoping that I'll die from it so I can't finally forget all these bills. If not for my kitties I'd be totally insane from the stress. Watching them gives me something else to think about for a while. They can be the funniest things in the world. But it's little respite. Without my computer I'd be a very lonely person too. Deb is wunderful but she's only here in the afternoons and always wants me out of the bedroom away from my computer. I don't want to leave and I can't make her understand that without seeming like a total asshole. I come out here but I miss my computer the whole time. She gets on this computer every AM and I go get on mine after she gets up. We talk on yahoo intermitently. I can't keep up a running patter with her most days because she's usually not awake enough to deal with my awake mind in the AMs after she gets up. We have a great IM program called SweetIM that keeps us entertained but it can only do so much. I just don't know what to do anymore. I lose myself in the computer and stay there as often as I can but you can't totally live online no matter how much you want to. The thing is this, my life sucks ass big time. I want out but I don't want to die to get away from it. They say money can't buy happiness. I think those fuckers don't know where to shop. It might not buy happiness but it damn sure makes it easier to try to be happy.

The Past

A friend of mine told me, the other day, that my mind lives in the past. I was kind of shocked since I thought I was alive today. But she did make me realize that my past is my whole life, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Not that I actually live in today or tomorrow. I live in my mind for the most part. I think therefore I am. It should be that I am because I'm thinking of tomorrow and others. I think of others quite often but most of the others are either dead or I can't talk to them because of distance. That's not to say I don't think of My Debbie or the kids. I think of them ALL the time. But there's a spot for them in my mind and that's usually the front thoughts. In the background is where the real living gets done. I think of My Ethelyn, my kids, my friends and my family probably more than most people think of anything. I live my life in today but every aspect of it is shadowed by yesterday. Everything I do, say or think about has something to do with my past in some way. I don't know if that is a good thing but it is the way I am. I Love My Debbie more than most men love anything or anyone in their lives. I also still Love My Ethelyn. I Love ALL my kids, steps or adoptees. Most of the time I just don't know what to do about my past tho. I lived thru a very traumatic childhood. An abusive mother with no regrets. I lived thru being houseless and living on the streets. I lived thru selling my body to the highest bidder. I lived thru drugs and alcohol. I lived thru the marriage thing. I even lived thru the death of my spouse and world. I've lived thru quite a bit, don't you think? I have no plans on dying any time soon. I have no plans of any kind actually. I just go as it seems to be the way to go. I dream of my life in wonders and magic. I dream of my life in sorrow and devastating. I just dream of my life as it has been and how I think it would be nice for it to be. These are all colored by my past but I still live in today as a man possessed by the coloring of his past.

Blah

Today I just feel blah. I haven't slept for shit the since Saturday night so I've been sleeping a lot during the day. I usually get a nap during the day but it's usually only a couple to a few hours. These past two days it's been six hours. My body can't take that much sleep at one time. I'm just not used to it. I woke up this morning at 7:30 and found that I was just in a very blah kind of mood and my brain was tired. I wanted to lay back down and go back to sleep but my body said no. My back hurts, my shoulders hurt, my neck is a total mess, even my butt hurts. I have no idea why my butt would hurt but it does. I'm just a mess today. I will get a nap today but hopefully it's only a short one. I wish I could wake up like normal people, rested and ready. I wake up tired and wanting more sleep. I don't have sleep apnia or even bad dreams most days anymore. I just wake up wanting to cry and go back to bed. I have no idea what to do with myself these days. I feel like crying a lot but I don't feel like I can. I haven't cried in a long time. I did cry when my son came home from South Carolina. I did cry when Debbie made me go to my daughter's ultrasound but those were isolated and didn't last very long. I just don't cry. I know I have depression and that it is made worse by lack of sleep but damn this sucks ass.

Drugs vs Meds

I was on drugs for a very long time. I started smoking pot when I was 9 years old. I started smoking cigarettes when I was 10 years old. I drank my first beer at the age of 3. I drank my next when I was 11. I got totally plowed at 11 too. These are all the main drugs I've done in my life. I have done plenty more but usually only as experiments. I tried a lot of things when I was young, trying to deal with the life I was in. An abusive home life started me into anything I could do to rebel and, in my eyes, to cope. I even took prescription meds of other people to get a high out of them. Then, when I was 23 I was put on my first meds. Depakote was my first med for my severe anger outbursts. My dr felt they might be a type of seizure disorder. I wasn't diagnosed with schizoaffective/bipolar till I was 31. I found a lot of the meds the drs put me on had a lot of nasty side efects. I now have diabetes, high blood pressure, restless leg syndrome, ED, lethargy, and an inability to exert myself beyond minor labor. I have ticks from time to time too. Most of the time I have trouble remembering easy things that I should know. Example: I forgot that I ate dinner last night about 2-3 hours after I ate it. I wasn't hungry but I thought I should eat something since I hadn't had anything all day. My Debbie says the memory loss is probably from the pot I smoked, and still do from time to time. I don't get high for pleasure or for just something to do anymore. I usually only smoke it when I have so much stress in my life that I can't think my way thru it. The pot helps me to think things thru logically. I don't really know which is worse for me, the drugs or the meds but I do know that I had a lot less side effects from the drugs. Pot doesn't cause diabetes or high BP. ED can be caused by any number of things in my life. I use herbs to counteract the side effects as much as I can. I keep trying to find the right herbs to fix my mental issues too. I even thought about electro shock treatments but I'm too chicken to try those. Enough for today. I'm going to rest a while.

Lost? Maybe

I have been remiss in my blogging for the past few days. I hope to get my mind back soon tho. Today's blog is on loss and grief. I feel both in severe amounts every day. I find my self wandering thru my memories and thoughts about Ethelyn. I find my self looking into the eyes of the ones I Love most looking for I don't know what. When I drive alone I talk to Ethelyn regularly. I don't cry but I feel like I could. I keep thinking that this would be a good time to hit a tree or crash into a river or anything to die and be able to see her again. I drive thru the fog watching for a large animal that might jump out in front of me so I can hit it and die in the wreck. It's not really a desire, just a sort of unfulfilled request. Unexpected and unfulfilled also. All I know is that I seem to miss her more each day that passes. I've talked to a few of my friends and my counselor about the day she died but it still is so clear I can almost taste the fear I felt that morning. We went to bed at around 11:00 PM. I offered her my hand, as usual, and she accepted it sleepily. She kind of stumbled as we went back to our bedroom. I asked what movie she wanted to see. She loved the movie "Untamed Heart", so that's what I put in. As it played and we watched, she slipped into sleep. As did I. She got up around 3 AM to get something to eat. A can of apricots from the foodbank. She was gaining weight because of her nocturnal wanderings into our kitchen. She only ate a very little but since she slept 16-20 hours a day it all went to fat. Her body was storing it for later use that never came. She came back to bed and patted my head and reminded me that she Loved me. Around 4:20 AM she slipped out of her body and went for a walk. At 7 AM I woke up remembering the pat on the head and turned over to kiss my life and wife good morning before I went to get breakfast for her. She was gone. She had blood lines on her arm and leg that I could see. I was freaking out bad. I touched her to make sure there was no life in her and that all was still real. She was gone. I screamed. My daughters were awake in an instant and one made it almost thru the door before I caught her and backed her thru it. I explained to them what had happened and like little girls will do, they cried. My son was still asleep. He could sleep thru a tornado picking up our house. He was a very solid sleeper. The girls went to the neighbor's house and tried to say something but couldn't vocalize anything intelligable. I called 911 and told them that my wife was dead. She had died in her sleep. I called my mother. I knew noone else on Earth would know exactlly how I felt at the moment more than she would. I know I badmouth my mother a lot but she knows quite a bit about grief from losing my Dad. My world had crashed down around my ankles. I was completely dead inside. My house was fucked due to the fact that I did nothing to straiten it up because I was always worried about her and I was a lazy ass bum. The cops took pictures of everything as evidence of my neglect. This came in handy for Ethelyn's relatives later to take my kids away from me. I called dispatch of her mother's trucking company and they got her the message that I needed to talk to her immediately. She called and I told her. Within about 5 hours she had the number and was on the phone to the best family lawyer in our area. She was setting things up so my kids wouldn't have to put up with me any more. That's another story. I lost my mind, heart, soul and world that day. I was now officially nothing. I wasn't even pond scum or whale shit on the bottom of the ocean. It took me a while to figure out that my kids needed me but by the time I did, it was too late, they were soon to leave. I guess I really was in no condition to take care of anybody right then because my friends and neighbors were all taking care of me. They made sure I ate and went to bed once in a while. I slept in the living room on the couch. No way in hell could I lay in that bed again. I got past that in a couple of weeks. I got to where I HAD to be in that bed because I could still feel her in it. I could smell her all over the room so naturally I rarely left my room. I was grieving in the only way I could, badly. I don't know if I ever went thru all the stages of grief like I've been taught that there are. I do know that I tried dealing with God but as usual I got nothing back from that deal. I began to slip out of reality pretty badly too. I couldn't remember where she'd gone but I just knew she'd be home in about an hour. That hour never came. After I found out what had truly killed her, I began smoking an incredible amount of cigarettes. I still do to this day. I smoke because I know someday it will kill me and then I can be with her again. This is a frustratingly slow suicide. I'm still trying to live each day as it comes but in the back of my mind I just know I'll die soon. I have a new family now. I have reconnected with my old family as well. I deal with them all as they appear in my life but I still hope that death will come and get me soon. My new family is great. I Love them all more than I ever thought I could again. Especially My Debbie. She is my new light in the darkness. She can't replace Ethelyn, no one ever can but she helps me thru each day. I think I'm still alive because of her. That is both good and bad for me. Good because I have a new life that I'm enjoying for the most part. Bad because sometimes I resent being here, for any reason, away from Ethelyn. Most days I'm fine, no biggy. Some days I feel like I'm dying inside all over again. I'm not in a hurry to die obviously but I do expect it any time now. I never believed I'd make it to 40 years old but I'm here. That's today's blog. Be well my friends.