The music is the same, I'm just dancing in my own fashion now.

I have an appointment with my psychiatrist tomorrow, this will be the third time I have seen this particular doc. I really don't want to go, but I promised my primary care physician I would at least give this psychiatrist an honest try. I don't exactly have the greatest opinion of psychiatrists, both from a professional and personal perspective. My last appointment didn't exactly go very well, which wasn't particularly unexpected. I didn't score any points with her and she didn't score any points with me. Here's an unnecessarily long exposition on why I'm not really fond of psychiatrists.

Let's start with a little backstory. I am a clinical laboratory scientist and I work in a hospital lab performing diagnostic testing. When someone draws your blood, I'm the guy on the other end who runs the tests on the specimen and/or looks at it under the microscope. I am very, very good at what I do. Clinical laboratorians, as a whole, are a very intelligent lot, we are extremely analytical and we have an ungodly amount of knowledge about disease processes and the tests we are performing. Here are some of the subjects that I have expert knowledge in: Hematology, clinical physiology, immunology, microbiology, immunohematology, endocrinology, genetics.....the list goes on and on and on. The medical director of our lab (she's a doctor, by the way) has said to me numerous times that she believes that the smartest people who work in any hospital are the clinical laboratory scientists. I'm not exaggerating that statement and I will admit that I am in complete agreement with her (hubris, is that you?). This next statement is going to sound arrogant and boastful, but it is not intended to be so in any way, shape, or form. If you were to ask most of my peers who the most intelligent, practically experienced, and knowledgable tech in our lab is, my name would be probably the one that came up the most. I'm not bragging, I'm just very good at what I do.....because I make sure I'm very good at what I do. It's a unique balance of aptitude, drive, knowledge, and predisposition to the subject. It should also be noted that I love what I do for a living and I can't see myself doing anything else. As a counterpoint, if you were to ask who the most volatile and most likely tech to get in trouble because of something he said, my name would be very near the top of the list, if not at the number one position. You have to take the bad with the good, people.

More backstory. I grew up in a mine field of mental illness, abuse, substance abuse and addiction. It runs on both sides of the family. While I am fortunate to not have any substance abuse issues, I am very mentally ill. The extent of my diagnoses are not of any import to this narrative, at least at this point. My sister was an end stage alcoholic with borderline personality disorder and she took her own life 5 years ago. My mother most likely had Complex PTSD coupled with an unspecified personality disorder. She continually used increasing doses of benzodiazepines for over twenty years. To say I'm intimately familiar with mental illness would be an understatement. I have been hospitalized numerous times for suicidal ideation over the years and I spent 6 weeks at in intensive outpatient treatment facility in Seattle. The outpatient treatment center helped to expand my knowledge on the subject of mental illness exponentially, though I found their methods to be naive and somewhat counterproductive for me since it was a faith based program (I made more than one of the staff members' heads explode while there. Talking about turning a wolf loose with the sheep.) and I am a too much of a free thinker for a lot of the programs that were offered. I understand the principles behind how a lot of therapy approaches work though. During my time around other people with addiction problems, I gained a far greater appreciation for depths of suffering and hardships that my sister suffered before her suicide. Most importantly, I came to a much greater appreciation and awareness of myself and my illness. It was almost like having an epiphany of realization. Things that I wasn't even remotely aware of became crystal clear almost immediately.  I came home and began the task of integrating all of my new knowledge and experiences into my daily life. Naturally my clinical knowledge and professional background contributed to this process and I began to draw many new conclusions about my perceptions, motivations, and reactions to everything in my life.

So, between my clinical knowledge from my career and my experiences with mental illness, I have a very unique perspective and understanding of the complexity of my situation. I can't emphasize enough just how much my intelligence factors into this equation (once again, I'm not bragging or stroking my ego). I seek knowledge and understanding of almost everything and anything I encounter in life. I look for patterns, I look for causes, I look for effects, I look to see how things fit together, I look at minute details, I look at the big picture. I'm always observing. My life is about logic and trying to figure out the "why" to everything. I never stop. I'm watching people right now as I write this post. If there is one thing my sister and I have in common, it most definitely would be our intelligence. Carly was so smart, smart in such a beautiful and charming way. Our intelligences manifested themselves in different ways, Carly was creative, I'm analytical. One of Carly's biggest problems was that she could never stay sober for more than few months at a time, effectively "work" the AA doctrines, or utilize the various counselors and therapists that she saw for help over the last 15 years of her life. I firmly believe this was partly due to how smart she was and she was too skilled at talking her way around her problems and sore spots when confronted with them. She was too hard to read. I honestly believe that I was one of the few people on the planet who could actually read her and not be manipulated by her..........because I'm exactly the same. If anyone even comes close to a difficult subject, my true feelings, or a sore spot, I will deviously (and frequently unconsciously) find a way to distract or divert the person in a way to not draw attention to the subterfuge. I show exactly what I want to show and only what I want to show. To be honest, I frequently take pleasure in doing this to people who I know I absolutely cannot trust under any circumstances. It's just too much fun and I'm just too good at it..... and Carly was too. I touched on this idea in this post. Some individuals have suggested that I have "tipped my hand" by bringing these things to light. Here's the rub; I wouldn't volunteer any of this if I weren't confident that I can continue the subterfuge and diversion, even when other parties are armed with foreknowledge of my behavior patterns. Yes, that is fucked up.......and I don't care. There are individuals who can see through my "smoke and mirrors" routine and naturally, I view them to be extremely dangerous entities. It has been three years since I last encountered one of those individuals and it just so happens he was a mental health professional at the intensive outpatient treatment facility I was at. He was the ONLY staff member I couldn't manipulate at will and he took me to task immediately. It was like getting slapped in the face, but I am one to admit when I am bested and we set upon making some changes in my thought patterns. Those changes still persist today, but an old force has returned and has done so in an overwhelming fashion. Cynicism is running the show now, folks, and to be honest, I currently have no intention of opposing or overwriting it's influence.

Now to be fair, I've taken some HUGE hits in my personal and career life over the last 15 months and my trust issues are at an all time high. My defenses are dialed up to repel anyone and everyone at this point and my social interactions have moved almost exclusively to Facebook. The darkness came knocking on the door, instead of resisting this time, I decided to wholeheartedly embrace it. There will be elements will who read this and will think I'm completely out of control and some kind of intervention or whatnot. That's not the case though, I know EXACTLY what I'm doing. I'm not depressed right now. I'm not angry. I'm not having anxiety issues. I just don't care right now. Am I bitter? I'm honestly not sure. I will say that I am feeling very defiant at this point in time, but I'm not angry. I'm doing what I want, which happens to mean being dark, brooding, apathetic, and cynical........ and this the is part where my psychiatrist re-enters the picture.

Remember all that stuff I said about being a really smart clinical laboratory scientist and all of the knowledge I have about mental illness? As I said above, I don't have a very high opinion of psychiatrists as a result. In fact, I think I've only met one psychiatrist who I really respected and felt was a compassionate human being. I'm not going to go into specifics as to why I'm very wary of psychiatrists, but rest assured, the list is long and is largely based upon my experience as medical professional.  With that out of the way, let's discuss what psychiatrists do. Psychiatrists prescribe drugs in the hopes that said drug will have a positive effect on a person's mental illness. Mental illness is not like diabetes or heart disease, every single case is unique and presents in unique ways. There is nothing definitive or objective about mental health medicine, it's all extremely subjective. When I was at the outpatient treatment facility, we found a particular drug regimen that seemed (?) to help alleviate some of the symptoms of the severe depression and anxiety issues that I chronically suffer from. Here's where things get even more complicated. There are basically two types of mental illness, transient and chronic. Now keep in mind that I am grossly over simplifying all of this for the sake of brevity. Transient mental illness is the kind that the drug companies are talking about when you see their advertisements on TV for the various antidepressants they are schilling for your doctor to prescribe to you. Transient mental illness usually goes away after treatment with a prescription a person responds to. Everything ends all happy like it does in the drug companies' shameless TV commercial and the patient goes back to his or her life, minus the antidepressant and minus the depression. Chronic mental illness is a much, much different story. Chronic mental illness can be something person has the misfortune to be born with, something a person can have a genetic disposition to, created by exposure to stimuli, or through substance use. It's fucking complex and guess what, my is complex as fuck too. Mental health practitioners have been arguing for years as to whether my primary diagnosis is even a real disorder . So let's see, very probable Complex PTSD (if it's even a disease), probable undefined personality disorder, severe chronic and recurring episodes of depression, and an unspecified anxiety disorder. To sum things up, medications are only going to do so much and expecting them to do anything other than support other therapies or relieve certain symptoms is completely unreasonable. To be honest, I'm not even sure meds work at all for me, it's so hard to tell. Now, I had been seeing my primary care physician for my medication needs because I actually trust her and she has been far more helpful and compassionate than any of the psychiatrists I've seen over the last three years. I love my doctor, I really do. She's one of those individuals that helps keep that pitiful, last vestige of faith in compassionate and conscientious medicine in this country alive within me. She's always compassionate, she recognizes my knowledge and intelligence, and treats me as both a patient and as a medical professional. I went and set an impossible task on her plate by asking her to manage my psychiatric issues and like I said, I've taken some really big hits in the last 15 months. It eventually became clear that perhaps it was time to refer me to a psychiatrist, one who is new to the community and that my physician had heard good things about from some of her other patients. So off I went to see this new psychiatrist.....with some trepidations.

The first appointment is always the "medical history" appointment where I get to try to cram the intricacies and subtleties of my issues to the psychiatrist along with the extent of my experience, knowledge, and intelligence. That lasted an hour and I left her office cautiously optimistic (which is unusual for me). My next appointment was six weeks later, though it was only supposed to be only four weeks later, but her patient load is so large that getting an appointment with her is difficult at, this is not a good particularly good omen, especially if I have an acute emergency and need to see her on short notice. Sigh. I saw her for a whole twenty minutes this time and we discussed the fact that I was still not seeing a counselor/therapist (my previous one "scaled back her practice" and cut me loose during a severe personal crisis at work). I told her that I wasn't really interested in seeking any sort of counseling at this point in time. She then pushed a "You have a poor attitude (which CAN be argued, but it's my prerogative) and I know better than you do.", attitude with me.........which is the absolute last thing you want to do with me, nor should you take that attitude with ANY patient. I have to deal with snotty physicians at work on a regular basis and I absolutely WILL NOT tolerate ANY attitude from ANY medical professional when I am the patient. This woman barely knows me, has little to no grasp of the complexity of my condition, no reference for the severe trauma and anguish I had suffered within the previous three months, AND she was not respecting my knowledge and intelligence. Then she told me that all of my recent tattoo additions were a form of "self harm". I must have been possessed by the spirit of one of my more patient ancestors that day because the normal me would have said, "HOW ABOUT A FRESH CUP OF GO FUCK YOURSELF? JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE INITIALS M AND D BEHIND YOUR NAME DOESN'T MEAN YOU ARE FUCKING SMART OR KNOW ANYTHING." Instead, I think I just blinked several times and thought about how many visible tattoos I would be able to get inked before my next appointment with her. I was summarily told to get a therapist (she suggested one of new age, mindfulness gurus out of the local new age guru institute) and to come back in 4 weeks......which turned out to be eight weeks later because that was the absolute soonest appointment available.......which no longer mattered to me. I kept telling myself that I was doing this for my primary care physician and walked out the door. Now, I've had eight weeks to simmer about this......which is a very bad thing. During that time, conditions at work deteriorated to the point that I had to temporarily reduce my work bid from 5 day a week to four days a week. I went to my poor doctor for that because she understands the fact that I'm VERY wary of any sort of therapists/counselors at this point, she also knows what kind of hell hole the lab tends to be, AND I can get an appointment with my physician within 48 hours of calling her office (yes, my doctor is awesome). Now, I'm off to my psychiatrist's office tomorrow after having stewed for eight weeks in the wake of my last appointment with her. This means I've had eight weeks to prepare my comments on her professional character and let me tell you, I'm pretty much ready to lay waste to her ego with the full resources of my intellect if she even looks at me wrong.  Fuck I hate psychiatrists, they can be so damn presumptuous. I'm at least going to try to be nice (be nice, be nice, be nice, be nice, be nice, be nice, be nice, be nice). She's going to be mad that I haven't established with another therapist and even more angry when I tell her I still have no intention of doing so. Seriously. I'm not wasting my money on it anymore. How do you think I've been funding all of my new tattoos? With all of the money I'm saving by not going to therapist. Let's see.... find a therapist or use money for the equivalent to what my psychiatrist thinks is self harm?  No contest, I'M GETTING INKED (a subject I plan to address in a post in the future)!!!! Who am I kidding though?  My cynical and jaded mind knows exactly what psychiatrists are for. They dispense drugs, that's what they do. They dispense drugs, make sure they don't cause fatal side effects when mixed together, and they hope they made the correct guess. No cynicism here. Nope, nope, nope.

As long as I'm trying to be honest (sort of), I might as well dump this fact on the table; going to a therapist right now is a complete waste of time. I don't want help. Period. My psychiatrist is convinced that I need mindfulness therapy. Guess what? I'm so fucking mindful that it's a part of the problem. Wait, maybe I need to be mindful of the fact that I'm mindful of my thoughts, how the fuck does that work?!? Oh wait, I know...... I don't fucking care. The lab's medical director ( the one who's a doctor and just happens to pretty much be the smartest person I've ever met) knows all of my story and was originally going to med school to be a .............psychiatrist (we have similar opinions on the subject, thank goodness she's a pathologist instead) agrees that not seeing a therapist isn't the smartest thing in the world, but she also knows me........very well. Well enough to know that I'm going to completely break, traumatize, or run circles around all but the best and most intelligent of mental health professionals. I need someone who can recognize when I'm full of shit and tell me that I'm full of shit. I may come around to the idea again at some point, just not now. Like I said above, I've embraced the darkness and I'm finding that it's very much to my liking. I get lots of tattoos and cookies. What's not to like? In all seriousness my life never has been fit for public consumption, I'm tired of trying to be something I'm not and spending all of this energy hiding my true nature. I can't hide it anymore, I have an extreme aversion to people. Scratch that, I'm allergic to shallow and dumb people. The problem is that 99% of humanity fall into both of those categories. Guess where almost all of my difficulties originated? People. People suck. Seriously. I'm trying to play the victim here either, I'm just being truthful. There are those who are going to read this and immediately think I'm completely out of control and that I'm not properly medicated. Hey, you people that I know are going to say that! I take the same meds every day that I've been taking for the last three year, nothing has changed!.......Well, certain circumstances have changed. Well, a LOT of circumstances have changed! You don't know me well enough to know though that and I'm quite busy laughing at your assumptions! Besides, if you ask me about it, I'm just going to lie to you anyway!........that is probably the most truthful thing I've said tonight........or is it?

I'm done with trying to convince the world I'm a good person.

I've frequently mentioned that I was involved in a very unfortunate trauma situation at work about six months ago and had to make a very controversial judgement call in regard to a blood bank emergency issue that we had no defined protocol for. Laboratory leadership came looking for my head and executed a very thorough assassination of my character with anecdotal evidence provided by my peers. Now I'm not saying that my character is without flaws, that I am not capable of admitting when I have made a mistake, or that things didn't occur as smoothly as they should have that night, none of that is in question. Bad things happened that night, I made a decision that looked very callous to those not privy to the intricacies of blood bank medicine and I reacted very poorly when my actions were called into question. None of that is in question, nor is that event the subject of this post. The aftermath of all of that is of great significance to me though. I take an extreme amount of pride and responsibility in my career, it's a very big part of my personality and identity. My career is what separates me from being a somewhat functional member of society or being like my mother and sister, individuals who were defined solely by their mental illness. I may have my flaws and difficulties, but my intentions are ALWAYS good and honorable, especially when it comes to patient care and safety. During my disciplinary meeting, the lab manager so thoroughly assassinated my character that I left the room feeling like everyone I work with thinks I'm an awful, awful person. It was plainly clear that the lab manager had solicited anecdotal evidence from my coworkers, cherry picked what she wanted, and then strung me up for all to see. It was extremely hard on me, to say the least. I went home absolutely dejected and came to work the next completely despondent. All I could think was that everyone thinks I'm a bad person and I obsessed over it for weeks. In my mind, I had completely failed as a human being......as I defined it then.

During this time of severe depression and shame I had an epiphany, I realized that I've spent the vast majority of my life trying to convince the world and more importantly, myself, that I am a good and decent person. I've been obsessed with proving it without knowing it even since I can remember, possibly. This is the byproduct of emotional and physical abuse from numerous sources from a very young age until early adulthood and then some sporadic events during adulthood. Every single day when faced with decisions, I would ask myself, "What would a good and decent person do in this situation?", and then I would do my best to follow that course of action in hopes of convincing people that I'm a good and moral person. This means that I spend a LOT of time obsessing about what other people think of me and this is a very unhealthy practice. Because of the abuse I suffered growing up, I inately believe that I am a bad person and that I HAVE to somehow make up for that by proving to the world that I am capable of being a good person. That never happens though. Just what is the definintion of a good person? There isn't an answer to that question. Worse yet, it's very subjective from one person to the next. I can list qualities that I think are those posessed by good people, but that would be pages long and no one really is interested in that. The real problem exists with the fact that I don't believe that I'm a good person unless people around me think I'm a good person. Therefore, my life depends on what other people think of me.

Now, flash back to my situation at work. Here we have a setting that is very important to my self esteem and I suddenly find myself in a world where I see that my coworkers and administration think I'm a bad employee, which equates to being a bad person in my mind. To make matter worse, with two exceptions, I no longer trust ANYONE I work with......at all. I'm scared, I'm paranoid, I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job, I'm absolutely convinced that I am a bad person and that I'm never going to convince anyone otherwise. To be honest, I should have fallen flat on my face and I'm lucky I didn't make a very serious attempt on my life. That didn't happen though. I didn't redouble my efforts to convince anyone that I really am a good person either. I was angry, very angry. I don't think I've been that angry since being a teenager. Something changed. I was angry at being betrayed by people I thought were my friends. I was angry that all of that time and work I had devoted to convincing people that I was a good person turned out to be for nothing. I was mad that I did my best to help save someone's life that night, but was hung out to dry (again) for my efforts.I was tired of feeling like I was less of a person. I was tired of being judged by people who couldn't possibly understand the kind of obstacles that face me every single day. I was tired of hating myself. I was tired of constantly wondering what people were thinking about me. One day a woke up and a question came across my mind: "WHO FUCKING CARES WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK ABOUT ME? DOES IT EVEN REALLY MATTER?"

About three years ago someone told me something that I didn't put much stock in until that very moment in time. A mental health professional told me, "What anyone else thinks of you is none of your business." To be honest, I thought this was the biggest load of crap that I had ever heard. That's to be expected from someone with no sense of self worth and who is constantly obsessed with how other people observe him. My mind wasn't ready to take that step. Well, I think my mind finally did take that step about four months ago. I stopped caring what about what my coworkers thought about me entirely almost overnight. I realized that if I was going to continue at the hospital I work at and maintain any kind of mental health, I needed to take a BIG step back and figure where my priorities should be. I realized that my mental health must always be priority number one, no matter what. Then I evaluated other aspects of my life and placed my career a few notches lower than it had previously been. I realized I could still be a great clinical laboratory scientist without sacrificing my mental health at the same time. In short, I dropped a lot of problems that are beyond my control and responsibility to preserve my sanity. I realized that one of coworkers, who is now retired, had done this very thing many years ago to save her own sanity. Most importantly, I resolved to continue to be the best laboratorian I can be, BUT I am no longer going to give ANY care to what my coworkers think of me. It's none of my business and it's not worth my time. I've chronicled my new work attitude HERE and so far it seems to be working. I can tell you I'm not very popular with some elements of the lab, but I seriously don't care anymore.

This attitude of not caring as to whether people think I'm a good person or trying to prove so has transferred into my personal life too. I no longer care at all what anyone thinks about me. I don't care if people outside of work think I'm a good person or not and I have no intention of ever going out of my way to prove it to anyone either. I'm probably never going to be convinced that I'm a good person.....and that's okay. I know that concepts like understanding, compassion, and kindness are very important to me. I'm also a huge bleeding heart, idealistic, liberal. Even further beyond that, I'm an atheist and I have more than a few socialist tendencies. Those last few ideals definitely put me at odds with a great deal of the population of this nation, if not the world and there are those who are going to judge me as a bad person as a result.....which is their prerogative. I can be very blunt and controversial at times. I have opinions about everything and have little inhibition about sharing them. This can make me difficult to get along with at times, but that is almost never my intent. As long as I'm not harming anyone else, I'm going to go my own way and pursue my ideals and lifestyle. I don't have to prove anything to anyone, including myself. I've survived far too much to second guess myself all of the time anymore. Spending all of my time trying to convince everyone I'm a nice/good person has really gotten me nowhere, I'm really just ready to be a person, my own person. I've seen and met plenty of people who I thought weren't the nicest people, yet they seemed to get on just fine. In fact, most of those people I met had or have a lot people in their lives than I do. Even further than that, they seem to be at peace with themselves.....something which I have never been able to attain. In the end, does it really matter if the world think you are a good person or not? A person's actions define who they are. Like I said above, I'm very much about kindness, understanding, and compassion. I like doing kind things for people, I just prefer to do them behind the scenes. I also care about people, I just don't emote it or go out of my way to show it. When the chips are down, I'll always be there to offer my hand in help, or shoulder to lean on. It will always be in private or behind the scenes though and will ALWAYS be sincere. I never want anything in return, nor do I seek recognition. In fact, I don't really want recognition beyond a thanks. I consider being kind to be every human being's responsibility. I help hundreds of people every year behind the scenes through my job, I don't seek thanks or recognition for those efforts from those people and I feel the same way about acts of kindness in the real world.

 I recently sold my mother's condo to a married couple who were friends or hers that lost their home in a fire. I didn't just sell them the condo, I told them they could have any and all of the furniture in the condo as well, since they lost most of their possessions to smoke damage.  I could have sold the condo for a fair amount more money, but I knew it would place it out of their price range. Mom left me enough inheritance that I can pay off my debts, buy a new car, and buy my own home with ease. There is nothing more that I could possibly need and I really have no desire for anything else. What is squeezing every last cent out of my mother's home and possessions going to gain for me? Nothing meaningful, to be certain. In the end, I'm selling someone's else's life and memories. Why not just give away most of it to someone in need? Money buys comfort, not happiness. With my debts paid off, my career is more than capable of supporting a comfortable lifestyle for me and The Dingoes. I was presented with a chance for me honor my mother by doing a very kind thing for some people she knew. I'm not writing this for any recognition, nor did I do this for them to prove anything to the world. I did this thing for them because I thought it was the morale, compassionate, and right thing to do. I would like to think that anyone placed in that situation would have done the same thing for them.

The problem lies with the fact that mom's friends are beyond appreciative of the gesture. So much so that it makes me REALLY uncomfortable. They have placed me on a very pedestal and continue to shower me with praise and love. They hardly know me though. I'm a VERY complicated man and my relationship with my mother was not a very good one. The praise I'm getting from mom's friends is almost unbearable for me. I received an email from the woman earlier this week informing me that they really want me to meet their grandchildren and whatnot. PLEASE NO! First off, the family is pretty religious and I'm about as atheist as they come, something I've been concealing from them since the day I met them. I never speak of the subject unless asked, but I find that just answering that I'm atheist is enough to offend many conservative elements. Second, I'm the very model of a middle aged, single, eccentric man. I can't possibly live up to the portrait that they've painted of me. Thirdly, they haven't seen me since I started covering my arms in tattoos. I'm not ashamed of myself or what I've done, I just don't want to make their heads explode. I am very much a model Missoula resident: weird as hell. All of this, "You are such a nice man and such a blessing!", stuff only scares the hell out of me.  I just want to be a guy, that's all. I was very, very, happy to be able to help them in their time of need and it honestly helped me gain some peace and closure over my issues with my mother. I am not that man that they think I am, I don't want to have to try to live up to man's legacy. He's not me, I'm not him. How do you get that point across to them? A situation presented itself where I could make a difference in some people's lives. I've been without a home, without any possessions save my car and my canine best friend. I know what that's like and I couldn't stand there and let someone else go through that without lending a hand. The last thing in the world I want ANYONE in this world to know is to how it feels to be me or have been me. It touched a nerve, a very raw nerve. I HAD TO DO SOMETHING. This doesn't make me a saint, I don't want to be a saint. I just don't to watch people suffer. Ever.  I'm just a guy, a guy with a very serious mental illness, and two dogs that he loves more than the world itself. I just want to be me, I want to find my own answers in my own fashion. I don't want to have to live up to anything other than being a good doggie dad.

Am I a good person? I don't know. Does it even really matter? Not really. What about what other people think about me? That's none of my business and it really shouldn't matter to me. Do I need to go out of my way to be a good person? No. I'm naturally kind, understanding, and compassionate, that's enough. Do I need to convince anyone that I'm a good person? Fuck no......and I have no intention of wasting any more time trying.

Being single at 41......and not giving a shit.

Being a single, 41 year old man is an interesting position to be in. My last relationship ended in spectacular fashion approximately three years ago, which was shortly before I turned 40 years old. I went through a period of abject terror of the idea of being single in my 40's. Here I am three years later and I honestly couldn't care less about the fact that I'm single. If there is anything that I've learned in the intervening years, it's that society's expectation that everyone is supposed to have a significant other at every point in time in their adult lives is just about the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life.

I recently posted an expose on the merits and difficulties of going your own way in today's world and I would place being a middle aged single man in that category. Being single as an adult in our society is not the norm and in many respects has negative connotations associated with it. I had a lot of anxiety over this until as recently as last year, but I managed to shrug all of that off about the same time that I stopped caring about what other people think about me. A lot of that has to do with the realization that I would rather be alone than in a bad, unhappy, or unhealthy relationship. My marriage didn't exactly end in the fashion I would have liked it to, but it was doomed from the get go. I harbor no resentments toward my ex-wife though I suspect the sentiment is not mutual.....and that's okay. She's now happily married to someone who was in our bridal party.....which sounds like something straight out of a soap opera, I admit. Like I said above, I have harbor resentments toward her and actually am very good humored about the situation. My next relationship proved to be very, very unhealthy and extremely abusive in nature. The specifics are complex and quite absurd. Too absurd even for soap operas. Fortunately things didn't progress into marriage and I pity the man she pitted me against and eventually went on to marry, he's now married to a very, very, mentally ill woman who could very well could clinically be labeled as a psychopath (not that I don't have significant mental health problems). It's easy to see what happened in hindsight, she came into my life when I was probably the most vulnerable that I had ever been. The rest is history. I still wear the scars from that experience, but I survived and I've learned an incredible amount about myself in the aftermath. The worst part is that I was very deeply in love with her and part of me always will be. Such a beautiful and ill woman. I wish her well and hope she some day will be able to see beyond the walls of her personality disorder and I hope she can come to terms with the things she has done to people along the way.

The aftermath of that four year mess has been one of loneliness, discovery, and acceptance. Oh how I hated being alone those first few years. Though I bordered on being desperate for companionship, I kept enough of my wits about me to know that I didn't want to stumble into anything bad again, but I felt like a failure because I was alone.  One sad thing that I've discovered is that there are plenty of single people out there who are indeed desperate enough to do anything to have someone in their lives if they find themselves to be single after a divorce or end of a long term relationship. I nearly stumbled into a few of those situations in the last few years, only to come to the terrifying realization of things before anything could happen. It scares the shit out of me, to say the least. I won't be manipulated ever again. I won't give ANYONE power over me again either.  I would rather die completely alone than fall under someone's influence or manipulations again. I don't need anyone who would do things like that in my life again, I've suffered far too much abuse to suffer any more.  I don't need to be in a relationship just to be validated, I have two Dingoes for that. I'm perfectly happy by myself, which is something a lot of people I know would never be able to accomplish. I don't need anyone. My happiness will never be dependent upon someone else nor will I ever be in a relationship just to be in a relationship. I am truly free in that regard.

All that being said, it would be very nice to have someone to share myself with. I've experienced a lot of things in life, beautiful things and things that would have completely destroyed a lot of people. I lived in Hawaii for two years with my oldest Dingo and we had many, many adventures together. It has been years since I've actually talked to anyone about my time on the island, yet it was such a transformative period in my life. I'm a very deep, complicated, and layered human being. I'm also very soft and compassionate on the inside, once you past my numerous defensive barriers. I'm passionate about many, many things and I can appreciate beauty in the most unlikely places. I also happen to be a romantic at heart, which is a part of my personality that never gets used these days.

My life is far from empty without an intimate partner, but it would be nice to have someone with me.  

........and with all of that being said, I'm SO complicated though. I walk well beyond the periphery of mainstream society and seem to only stray farther and farther from it as time goes on. I have no intention whatsoever of being "normal". I question everything I carry a lot of scars and pain with me, my demons haunt me every night in my sleep. There are times in my life when it's all I can do get out of bed and feed myself. I'm a huge fatalist and I'm completely convinced that I will die by my own hand some time in the future. I'm obsessed with dark philosophy. I'm an atheist and about as secular as you can get. There is little about me that isn't complicated nor am I easy to understand. One of the reasons why I'm so comfortable being alone is because I honestly don't see that I'm ever going to find anyone who is going to patient or deep enough to handle me. I can't even keep any long term close friends, let alone maintain an intimate relationship. So to be honest, I've given up on the idea of finding anyone.........and that's okay. I spend a LOT of time sitting in my coffee shop in downtown Missoula watching people come and go. I wonder what it's like to be normal, what it's like to be able to make friends easily, and what it's like to have intimate relationships with the opposite sex. I'm not going to sugar coat it though, I'm quite certain the majority of couples I see are in relationships that are not healthy. I've watched too many of my friends' relationships fall apart or watched them stay within an unhappy relationship because they weren't strong enough to go their own way. I've seen too many friends choose the wrong people or keep going back to the wrong person time and time again. As with everything in life, I'm really cynical about love, marriage, and relationships.......but I also UNDERSTAND how they are supposed to work very well......well enough to know that I'm probably not capable of being a healthy partner to anyone......and that's okay. There is nothing anywhere that says life has to be fair, you have try to make the best that you can with the cards that you are dealt. I have two Dingoes in my life that I love very dearly and I think it's a very beautiful love, one that brings so much joy to my life. I may not have anyone in my life as far an intimate relationship goes, but there is plenty of love in my life. Being alone is okay and I'm okay with being alone.

Hiding in plain sight.

A great deal of my life is devoted to hiding and/or giving people a false sense of who I am. I've discovered over time that I'm a far too deep and sensitive person to even come close to wearing my heart on my sleeve. I admit that I take a certain measure of pride in being mysterious to people that I interact with on a daily basis. I find I'm far more open on Facebook and this blog because I know that only people who are genuinely interested are going to take the time to read anything that I write. My work place is probably the setting where I hide the most and employ the most amount of subterfuge to keep people from getting to close to me. When you have the level of trust issues that I do, keeping secrets becomes an obsession of sorts. People who know me well enough that they can tell me anything in confidence and that it will stay that way, but I am not one to divulge any of my own secrets because they are mine alone to keep.

All of this behavior is designed to minimize any rejection, abuse, and/or abandonment that may occur when people get too close to me and gaze into the abyss of my mind. I live in a pretty deep, complex, and extremely dark world and I've found most people are not capable handling any sort of intimate knowledge of the inner workings of my mind. Notice I say most people, I know there has to be other people out the who are similar to me and this is where the "hiding in plain sight" part comes in. Though I really do prefer to wrap myself in mystery and subterfuge, I do leave very subtle clues for the very perceptive to find if they should happen along and are looking for other people like themselves.

We'll start with the music I listen to. Though I do listen to a fair amount of music for more superficial reasons, the artists that I am very passionate about usually write their own songs and frequently write about darker subject matters. Favorite songs of mine almost always resonate with me personally from a lyrical standpoint. Only one person in my life figured that I frequently express myself inner self in secret through the music I listen to and she turned out to be a bit of a scorpion. The clues are there though, it takes an intimate knowledge of a song's subject to tease out how it resonates with me. Most people aren't passionate enough about music to spend their time trying to disseminate what an artist is trying to convey in their music and not every music artist is actually trying to convey any sort of actual emotional meaning or message. Like I said above, not all of the music I listen to is deep, but traditionally my favorite artists tend to fall into the deep side of things.

I leave other subtle clues for people to pick up on if they are clever enough and paying attention. I've wanted to get a lot of ink over the last few years, but financial constraints and an aversion to the process of getting tattooed itself we significant hurdles to that endeavor. Not so anymore. It may seem that a lot of my ink is random and very nerdy in nature, but I assure you that every piece that I have has very deep and significant meaning to me on many different levels beyond being forms of art. I will say there is an overarching theme that ties a lot of my tattoos together, but that's as far as I'm going to go with any sort of explanation. Let's just say it's very complicated and personal in nature. The types of visual media that I watch usually also have overarching and deep undertones with me as well. They also tend to be pretty dark in nature. My favorite books are very complicated and layered works by one of the grand masters of science fiction. The very foundation of more than one of my core beliefs lie within the the six original books of Frank Herbert's "Dune" series. Once again, the clues are there, but you have to look VERY hard to see them, let alone understand their significance.

It's hard being a deep, layered, mentally ill, and flawed individual in today's world. I'm extremely introspective and spend a great deal of time writing or in deep thought. I constantly observing the world around me to try to understand it and try to figure out where my place in it is supposed to be. I tend to be very suspicious of anything trendy or very popular within popular culture. I'm very solitary in nature, mostly because I've discovered that people really can't handle the real me or have less than honorable intentions in their interactions with me. I'm absolutely bound and determined to go my own way and refuse to be influenced by or rely on anyone other than myself. I refuse to be defined or confined to any sort of category. I also absolutely refuse to be told or influenced by anyone when it comes to how I should think, what I should like, or how I should act. I'm really not fit for public consumption because of my flaws, fears, and complexities. People have a really difficult time understanding me......and that's okay. Most people are too wrapped up in their own worlds to look beyond those walls.....and that's okay too. Like I've said numerous times in this post, I leave subtle hints about the true nature of myself out there in the world for the right people to see and interpret. I like being a mystery and probably always will. This has the unfortunate side effect of being a lonely existence though. I used to worry about this a lot in the past few years, but I seem to have overcome my fear of being alone. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, all I know is that I'm comfortable with it. In the meantime, life goes on and I go on.....as best I can and in the fashion as I see fit.....leaving clues along the way. Hiding in plain sight is fun.

A sad realization, but one that ultimately proves to be a healthy one.

I love what I do for a living, I really do. Working in a hospital lab every day never gets boring to me and I never tire of helping sick people. That being said, I work in a very toxic hospital lab setting, one that is less than conducive to my overall mental health. In fact, I work in conditions where excellence, character, and effort are always ignored or worse; exploited. I work in the basement of hospital in a room with no windows, where the phone rings constantly and eternally with complaining and belligerent callers. I don't work in a happy environment. Why not leave then? Why not indeed. I can give three very good reasons, the first being that I believe in the lab's medical director (she's the doctor that oversees all of the medical and technical aspects of the lab), the second is that I love living in Missoula, the third is that I'm sick and tired of running.

It has been nearly four months since the night I had to make a controversial judgment call on a trauma situation, followed by my subsequent vilification and offering up as a sacrificial lamb by the laboratory director. As I have stated previously on this blog, she committed no less than character assassination on me, dragging up every undocumented rumor or breath of dissent about me over the last five and half years. Sources that are loyal to me speak of how individuals were encouraged to air any and all dirty laundry about me within the privacy of the lab director's office. I no longer think everyone took a shot at me, but I do know just who the biggest culprits are. I can say that I'm nowhere near as bitter about it now as I was three months ago, but wounds take much longer to heel with me and the wounds I suffered this last time were especially deep.

My latest realization stems from the fact that the lab director (NOT the medical director, they are two different people) threw the book at me so hard that I have a blunt force induced concussion from its impact with my head. She pulled no punches and I consider myself lucky to still have my job. Worse yet, I see the practical reason for taking such a hard shot at me, she's laying the groundwork to dismiss an employee who suffers from an illness that flares up without warning and often results in a extended periods of leave. My leave is always protected by the Family and Medical Leave Act and my physician is ALWAYS very supportive, proactive, compassionate, and conscientious about my condition. Though each and every period of leave has been medically necessary and physician mandated, that doesn't mean it's not a huge pain in the ass for the lab director to try make arrangements for my leave. So the best thing would be to dismiss and replace me with a far less maintenance heavy employee. It's far from the compassionate thing to do, but the lab director has demonstrated time and time again that she is has little to no compassion for anyone other than herself.  The benefits coordinator in human resources assures me this isn't the case, but she doesn't know that laboratory director very well, nor does she work with the people I do. They are human beings, which means they can be shallow, petty, less than sympathetic, cruel, and spiteful.

I've been doing my absolute best to stay as far below the lab director's radar as possible, but the lab has been in a serious staffing crisis for the last two months and things aren't going to get any better until near September. When I become stressed, exhausted, and burned out, it becomes far more difficult to control my personality and I'm far more prone to getting in trouble and can easily fall into suicidal episodes. Working short in the lab is extremely difficult and requires an amount of energy and mental acuity  that is extremely difficult for me to maintain every week. To be brief, at this rate it's only a matter of time before I crash and burn again. In an attempt to avoid this outcome, my physician has placed me on a four day a week restriction until working conditions in the lab improve enough for me to return to full time status. It should be noted that the staffing crisis is without question the lab director's fault, her fast and reckless approach to management always creates these situations and it's the lab staff that suffers every time. I hate being the canary in the cage for the lab, but I can't escape the fact that I'm far more sensitive to stressful periods than pretty much anyone else in the lab. Coupled with the fact that I'm still recovering from a very traumatic and vulnerable period, not being proactive at this point could be disastrous, could cost me my job or something far worse. The lab director was much less than happy when I broke the news to her, even when I explained the reasoning behind the move.....actually that probably made matter her attitude worse since it highlights her poor leadership abilities. That being said, it is far easier to fill one shift a week than to have me take another six week leave of absence, which I did point out to her. She did make a few passive aggressive comments when I tried to help her come up with solutions to this week's schedule.....which once again demonstrate the nature of her character. I get three days a week off for the near term, but I'm back on her radar again and that is not a good thing.

One thing that I've learned over the last seven years is that unless someone has experienced trauma, loss, hardship, serious illness, and/or mental illness they are not likely of being able to feel much compassion for people who are suffering from the things I just listed. I'm not saying that everyone is this way, there are individuals who are genuinely compassionate without those kinds of experiences because they can look beyond the bounds of their own lives. That being said, there are also people who go through awful circumstances and learn nothing from them, I learned that just this last year. The majority of the people I work with aren't what I would call understanding or compassionate. Though I do my best to hide it, I'm probably one of the most compassionate individuals you will find in the lab because I've seen some pretty awful things in my lifetime and am very sensitive to the suffering of others. The majority of the individuals I work with are only appear superficially compassionate and only really care about their own problems and don't seem to be able to see outside their own (often limited). Some individuals are downright cold, selfish, and only concerned with how things affect themselves. I am always acutely aware of what consequences my actions and absences have on the staff of the lab and it has been a constant source of anxiety for me. That being said, no in the lab has had even close to the kind of obstacles, hardship, loss, and trauma that I've had over the last six years. Since I started at the lab I lost my only sibling to suicide, both of my remaining grandparents, my mother, a horrific mountain biking accident and had to endure an unbelievably bizarre set of circumstances involving a long distance relationship with a probable sociopath. I've nearly taken my own life numerous times during the last six years and I've had no less than four different stints at mental hospitals. I've been through all of this and only a few individuals from the lab have extended a hand to me in support. These people know who they are and they are they only people from work (save two) who have access to this blog. I am eternally grateful to these individuals and hope that I can repay them in kind at some time. However, there has been a core group of individuals who have been far less than compassionate toward me and it was this group who took their shot at me during my last episode. What's sad about this is that I had offered my (genuine) support to one of these individuals during a very difficult circumstance during an adoption proceeding that went wrong. If anyone in the lab suffers and sort of serious setback, I will always be among the first to offer my hand to help, though I know the same courtesy won't be given to me in most cases if the circumstances were reversed. That's me though, I can't standby and watch someone go down in flames without offering help.

All that being said, I've changed quite a bit as to how I behave at work after having been thrown to the wolves and then set upon by vultures. (too much?) I am a problem solver and am always happy to lend a hand to any sort of problem, dilemma, conflagration, or conflict that may arise in the lab. That isn't the case anymore. I used to get involved in all of the problem circumstances that would arise when I was on shift and do my best to resolve them (sometimes in a less than diplomatic fashion). I would go to bat for any of my coworkers and do my best to help anyone who was having a hard evening or night. I would always go the extra mile and would often go above the call of my station. Not so anymore. I go to work, go to the department I'm going to work in, and stick to the duties within that department. I do my best to not answer the phone unless it's absolutely necessary (a subject for another time), I don't get involved in any problem or conflict situations unless it directly involves me, and I never take charge or responsibility of anything that falls outside of my station. I still do the very best job that I possibly can with efficiency, precision, and expediency.....I just don't go the extra mile anymore. It's sad because the lab director killed what made me an excellent and conscientious contribution to the hospital. What's worse is that I don't care that she killed that part of me.........and I'm actually happier because of it. I'm nowhere near as stressed out at work as I used to be. I don't get worked up about things that I have no power to change or aren't responsible for. I'm still one of the best techs in the lab and I assure you, my house is ALWAYS in order when I leave for the night. I still care very much for our patients, but I have to stay off the lab director's radar. Most importantly, my primary responsibility is to take care of myself first and foremost. I have a chronic condition and I must do what I can to stay as healthy as I can in every way possible. Putting the weight of the lab's problems on my shoulders does NOT help with this endeavor. While I don't get riled up over things or sacrifice myself for the good of the lab anymore, many of my coworkers are still caught in that cycle. If only they could understand that it only enables our lab director's poor management and actually perpetuates the problem. She never acknowledges anyone's extra effort or sacrifices, she exploits them. Because I've stepped outside of all of this, some elements (those who were quickest stab me in the back) are angry because they see me as being selfish because I'm not willing to sacrifice myself and free time for a lost cause. Guess what, people? Me doing just that has played an important role in just about each of my leave of absences over the last three years. So, why would I continue doing any of it? Let's face it, one of these times I may just quit screwing around and overdose on something because I fucked the pooch at work and got into a heap of trouble again. It just isn't worth it, the lab's not worth it, the lab director is not worth it. I'm sorry those who are offended by this can't see the sense in it.

After all of that I am sure anyone who is reading this is wondering why I stay at the hospital. That is an easy answer, I believe in the lab's medical director (NOT the laboratory director). Our lab's medical director is a pathologist of the highest caliber (at least in my opinion) and she happens to be one of best human beings I have ever met. I don't give unquestioning loyalty to just anyone and I would follow that woman through the gates of hell and beyond. She is quite possibly the most intelligent person I have ever met (that's no small compliment coming from me) and she is one of the most compassionate people I have ever met. I doubt I could ever put into words just how much she has helped grow as a laboratorian and how much she has supported me with my struggles since I came to know her five years ago. I'm in her office talking to her just about every day and almost every day she inspires me to be the absolute best and compassionate medical professional that I can be. She's brutally honest and shoots straight from the hip. She tells me when I'm full of shit and questions me when she thinks I'm dodging something or not being completely honest. Not many people on this earth are capable of doing that. She is an inspiration to me and she is one of the best friends that I have ever had. She knows my darkest secrets and fears, but never blinks, never waivers, and never stops encouraging me. She is only six months older than I am, but I always feel so immature when compared to her (not in a bad way). She reminds me every day why I do what I do for a living, she is extremely passionate about laboratory medicine, and she has helped me keep my cool through more than one serious blood bank bleeding emergency. As long as she is medical director of the lab I doubt I will ever seriously think about leaving. I'm not the only person who feels that way about her. She is the very antithesis of what the laboratory director is. She hates bullshit, she hates politics, and she isn't afraid to speak her mind. She will go to the mat for anyone who works in her lab and has done so for me on numerous occasions. Having that kind of influence in my life is immeasurable and invaluable.

Though the atmosphere in the lab is frequently toxic to my mental health, keeping my thoughts and attitudes in the proper frame can help lessen the effects the working conditions have on me. I used to think that my coworkers were my friends, but now I know (with a few exceptions) that they are just coworkers. Nothing more, nothing less. I now know to expect no loyalty from them and that I shouldn't waste any trying to gain loyalty from them. I am dedicated to my job, but I am not going to sacrifice my mental health for the lab or hospital because history has shown that I end up with nothing to show for it. I go to work, only get involved in problems that directly relate to me, and I go home. No more, no less. I will do my absolute best to stay as far off of the lab director's radar as possible. I will also do my absolute best to make sure that I'm taking care of myself and my wellbeing first and foremost.....which I am doing now. I'm not at work to make friends, I'm there to do my job, help sick people, and earn a living. I can't fix the problems of the lab, nor will I waste my energy trying. I will continue to be absolutely loyal to the lab's medical director and will always strive to live up to the faith she places in me. I will never stop trying to be the best laboratorian I can be, I just won't sacrifice my wellbeing for causes that aren't worth the effort. The hospital just sold to a larger conglomerate and we are waiting for the ink to dry on the agreement. Once that is done, we will be a for profit hospital and means that there will be changes. There will be an inevitable administrative purge, in which I hope the lab director is "forcibly retired". The new organization is said to work under the Mayo model of administration which is different from how things are currently done at the hospital. I have hopes that things will get better once our new overlords begin to assert control over the various aspects of the operations of the hospital. I expect that most of administration is going to be climbing all over each other to save their jobs and it will be very entertaining to watch the lab director try to secure her position, especially in light of the fact that she has at least six years of extremely poor employee engagement survey scores hanging over her head. My guess is that she will go down in flames, but she will probably try to take as many people down with her as possible in the process, so I must be careful during this period. I plan on evaluating things in six months to see which way the wind is blowing, if it isn't blowing in a favorable direction I may just move on to a different pasture. In the meantime, I must do my best to stay on top of my mental health while doing the best job I can. At this point I'm pretty confident I can manage things if I stick to my new attitude.

A change of attitude?

A couple of days ago I wrote about the sad state that my attitude has been over the last few months and how I had little inclination to change my outlook on things. That may have changed over the course of the last 48 hours. I'm not sure what transpired, but yesterday I started to come around to the idea of getting back on track with things. I suddenly want to get out to walk the dogs again, I want to try to start mountain biking three days a week, and I suddenly want to try to go to the gym more frequently than the personal training appointments that I have twice a week. This is a pretty big paradigm shift when compared to my previous state of mind. I no longer feel that it's all pointless or a huge waste of energy.

I should point out that I still feel very defiant, bitter, and not likely to undertake the task of finding a new therapist/counselor at this point, but I'm at least taking an interest in activities that help to keep my spirits up. I'm also still VERY wary of people in general and am not interested in opening up or forming new connections with them. That's going to take a considerable amount of time to heal, if it heals at all. Still, my attitude as of this morning if far better than it was even 48 hours ago. I suspect my previous post may have helped some by laying the bare truth of how I felt out on the table for the world to see. My attitude still needs a LOT of work and there isn't going to be any massive course reversal overnight, it's going to take time. Getting out and doing some things that I enjoy will certainly lay the foundation for a better overall outlook on things.

My problem over the last year has been an overwhelming amount of negative and traumatic events in my life. Sometimes when things get as bad as they have been as of late, I give up all hope and embrace the darkness instead of resisting it. Even as I write this I feel the urge to just reverse course and fall back into the waiting arms of the darkness that continually threatens my mental wellbeing. Why fight the emptiness that never seems to be more than a step or two behind me? It's so hard to resist and try to make a difference in my life, but it's oh so easy to stumble and fall back into the waiting embrace of the darkness and stay there permanently. Why fight a war you can never truly win? Well, as most people who are even casually familiar with my personality can tell you, I'm very defiant by nature. I survived the abuse I suffered as a child because of my naturally defiant nature and desire to stand against what I perceive to be injustice. In many ways, my entire life is a study in defiance and a refusal to give in to forces that I have no possible chance of defeating. In the battle against my illness and my past, I have to be defiant just for the sake of being defiant. Any measure of resistance against the darkness that hunts me is a small measure of victory. It takes SO MUCH energy to be defiant day in and day out. Complicating things further is the fact that I have to be aware of my natural tendency to want to embrace the darkness and be able to recognize when it is trying to influence my thinking and behaviors. It's not easy, not by any stretch of the imagination. I can never rest on my laurels for one day because the darkness will be clawing at my heels in no time. I hate it, but it's the way things are for me. So I have to be defiant every minute of every day, it's a good thing that having a defiant nature is natural to me because it and my intelligence are the only real weapons I have against the hunter that never ceases to stalk me. Here's to defiance, may I never cease to be defiant by nature.

I tried optimism once, I was too cynical for it.

Lately I've been taken aback by the level of constant cynicism that emanates from my person. I've always been a very cynical person, but as of late I've taken things to an entirely new level altogether.  In fact, I would have to say it has evolved into a fatalistic acceptance that I cannot change things in my life. It's hard to pinpoint just one event that would be the cause of my increased cynicism, but there have been many events that have occurred that probably have combined to produce a much less than positive demeanor.

Having my best friend walk out on me during one of the most difficult experiences in my life definitely has soured my overall view of people in general. Further complicating things would be getting clothes lined at work over a situation that we had no protocol for,  being strung up for making a judgement call, and then having my character completely assassinated, by people I had called friends at the time, really poured gasoline on the fire. To say I'm pretty much over having any people in my life right now would be a gross understatement. My attitude is that people just don't understand me, I'm too complex, and that they only end up hurting me, so it's best to keep them at arm's length, form no connections with them, and expect nothing from them.

For the last seven years it has seemed like it has just been one significant trauma after another and the effects have really started to wear on me. I tried a different approach back in 2011 after a positive experience at an intensive residential mental health facility, but I seem to have fallen even farther down into my hole than I was before I landed at that program. I seem to have wholeheartedly embraced the idea that my complex PTSD, probable personality disorder, and severe depression are pretty much insurmountable and that I should just accept the idea that I'm permanently broken and incapable of any long term happiness. Though I am not suicidal at this time, I am almost certain that I will take my life some time in the future, probably soon after Jack and Carter pass away. I'm far more isolated from any safe, meaningful, real world social interaction than I ever have been in the past. Worse yet, I trust absolutely no one and have come to the conclusion that the world I live in so bleak that any time I let anyone near the truth, I'm only going to cause them pain and will be subsequently abandoned. Thus, I'm not opening up to anyone or seeking any professional help at this time......because I've found that I'm too complicated for pretty much any mental health professional because of my background, programming, and very high intelligence. In short, I'm too much to handle save for the very best professionals and those that live here in Missoula are in such high demand that it's nearly impossible to get in to see one. I am seeing a psychiatrist for my medications, but being a medical professional myself, I have only met one psychiatrist I have ever really liked. I'm very cynical when it comes to psychiatrists because of my medical background and understanding of mental illness in general. I think psychiatrists over simplify and trivialize people's suffering and do no more than push pills on people in the vain hopes that they might provide some measure of relief. I saw my psychiatrist last week for the second time and she already has taken on the attitude of "I know what's best for you because I'm a doctor."......who does not know me at all, who knows little of my history, doesn't understand the depth of my trust issues, and is making the huge mistake of underestimating my intelligence. She was clearly irritated with my poor attitude and lack of willingness to try to find a new counselor/therapist. How is she supposed to get any measure of my condition when I only see her for 30 minutes once every 6 weeks or so? What a complete waste of my time, the least she could do is recognize that because I happen to be a smarter than average diagnostic medicine professional, I probably have a better understanding of mental illness than she does because I happen to be mentally ill AND am a medical professional at the same time. So your one and only claim is that you know about drugs, but you have no idea how they work or if they have any chance for helping my condition. Well, that's really neat (which means go fuck yourself). So, how does anyone actually help me?  My last therapist realized that I was way out of her depth and cut me loose at the worst moment possible, so naturally I'm more than a little bitter, hesitant, and cynical about establishing with a new therapist and undertaking the huge task of tell my life story again. The gist of this is that I'm so cynical and apathetic toward the state of mental health care at this point that I find it to be a huge waste of my time to even try.

Work has been a real exercise in misery as of late too. The lab is criminally short staffed and the term "theater of the absurd" applies itself with gusto on a daily basis. Having to work with people you know stabbed you in the back at moment when you were your weakest is not an easy thing to live with. In truth, I'm nowhere near as bitter about it now as I was three months ago, but the bitterness has been replaced with apathy and ambivalence to almost everyone in the lab, save a few people who I genuinely care about. I keep asking myself just how much worse things can get before something truly disastrous happens and positive change can result from it. The hospital just sold to a larger conglomerate and I guess I hold out at least some hope that things will change once they come in to inevitably purge and restructure administration. If things don't change enough for my taste, I will finally give up and run......something I've done far too much of in the last seven years and loathe to continue to do. Missoula feels like home and I don't want to leave, but the environment at work as it exists now is very detrimental to my mental health and may necessitate a move to a different clinical setting, probably in the Seattle area. I would be very, very sad to leave Zoo town though. I hate running away, I really do. I want to make things work somewhere and would prefer that place be here.


As I'm sure you can tell, my attitude is very poor right now and the worst part is that I just don't care at this point. I barely have enough energy to get out of bed and go to work, let alone fight a battle that seems impossible to win and requires a level of energy I haven't had for over a year now. I live for the dogs, they remind me of how important unconditional love is and I love them back with all of my heart. I keep getting more tattoos with the money I save from not going to a therapist, though I'm not sure if getting them is an act of self expression or one of outright defiance. I take far too much pride in standing as far as I can outside of mainstream culture, to the point of offending some of my online friends with my attitude to mainstream media consumption. I must admit that I find a lot of it stupid and openly demonstrate my contempt for all of it. I really get tired of listening to my coworkers talk nonstop about Game Of Thrones, I read the first book and found it to be awful. It's just another example of how I just don't get our society. It doesn't help that part of me doesn't really want to be associated with humanity and would love to find a way to transcend our society. Every public shooting that occurs now makes me cringe visibly because most of them are perpetrated by people who are mentally ill, like myself. Though I hate our society, I have zero ambition or inclination to take it out on other people in some enactment of revenge on innocent individuals. I just don't want to be part of a society that is increasingly destructive, materialistic, and lacking any compassion for others. In many ways, the decision to move to Kauai was an attempt to escape all of what I just listed. We all know how that turned out for me though. I used to think the answer was out there somewhere, no I think there are no answers and that we need to enjoy the measure of comfort we have now before we outright destroy ourselves and the planet. People only seem to exist to consume in this country. I refuse to have anyone tell me what is a must have commodity or what is cool. I refuse to accept that capitalism is the answer too. What does money really bring? It brings comfort, not happiness. I would prefer to be happy. Most people aren't even capable of comprehending the idea that humanity could achieve so much more if gave up on making materialistic gains the focus of our lives. So I'm basically judging our society as an utter failure and disappointment, can I possibly get any more cynical than that?

Though I genuinely believe that I am a permanently broken individual and that fighting for myself is a waste of time, I do find comfort in helping people who are going to through difficult times similar to my experiences. Despite my cynicism, I genuinely feel for other people's pain and want to help them as best as I can. It's very important to me for some odd reason. I guess I'm not cynical enough to give up trying to at least leaving a small measure of positivity before leaving this mortal coil behind some day. If my experiences can help people in life, I guess I could call that a small measure of victory.

Finally,  I recently told one of my last remaining friends that fatalism is neither sad or cynical if it is the genuine truth. At this point I would like to believe that I'm at least not deluding myself about my future and have truly embraced my fate. Some people just aren't well suited to living in this world, my sister was one of those people and she struggled to very end before she could bear it no longer. I think I am very similar to her in that respect, I just happen to lack her courage and am too attached to a pair of Dingoes to completely accept my fate just yet. Life goes on and I continue to endure......for now. Who knows, maybe my attitude will improve in the future, maybe it won't. I could choose to give a crap about my attitude, but I am too apathetic, cynical, and fatalistic to do so at this point.......and I'm just fine with that.