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The line … “I must change or die…” comes from a song titled Dawn Will Rise, by Thirty Seconds to Mars. It goes along with the idea that change is always constant and whether we change with the times or not is up to us. It also speaks to the fact that there are consequences if we do not in fact, change or evolve as needed throughout our lives.
Funny thing is, I felt nudged to sit down and flush my thoughts out in a blog post. To my surprise, I already had a post titled “Change or Die”. The computer says I wrote it in September. I wasn’t being nudged to write, I was being nudged to read what I had already written. Apparently September me and December me need to have a talk. Conclusion for both is below: For me, it is a bit different this idea of changing or dying. My life just isn’t working for me right now. I had decided to go after a simpler, easier life. A life where I have ample time off. Summer Fridays, Winter Recess and holiday breaks though out the year plus vacation and sick pay. A life where I worked on a nice campus where I could take strolls through the gardens on my lunch breaks. A life where any and every kind of inclement weather meant extra days off and no scary commutes. I have that life right now and it is killing me. It is killing me because the pay is not where it needs to be and the rest of my life is in dire lack. What good is having all of this free time if you have no one to share it with and no money to go explore the world with? My mental health is worse than ever, my spiritual health is worse than ever and my financial health is worse than ever. I have a long commute, nasty attitudes, complete boredom all day long and I’m not even getting a good salary. I’ve learned that boredom is not a strong suite of mine. The more bored I am the more down the rabbit hole of anxiety, stress and depression I go. The same appears to be true when I am not challenged. Funny thing is, I thought this was what I wanted. I thought I wanted the so called easy life. Easy job with out much required of me, ample time off to play and just you know chill. But I am not happy. I am miserable. This got me thinking back to when I was in more challenging positions within higher pressure industries. While I still had a lot of stress to contend with, I didn’t have the other stuff because I was too busy for the other stuff to come into play. Time off was treasured and I honestly liked being a part of the things I was helping to create. I also have come to realize that I like jobs that keep me or require me to be fully present. If I can’t zone off in my head, how can I get depressed? And so this is my own personal change or die. If I stay where, I am I will continue this slow downward spiral, but if I change, I risk losing my time off and easy breezy work days. I just have to remember that chasing those did not help me. I need to change and chase the things that might bring me back to life.
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Note: This is not really a post. It is me working things out in my head. Past events that led to an internal failure and repeated external failures that I need to resolve. Feel free to read and take what you can.
I recently had a virtual psychic reading. I want to say it went well. And it did, I think. I certainly hope he wasn’t selling me a song, because the story he told of my future was very much to my liking. In fact, it is everything I want! I just hope he was getting the correct info and not picking up on what I would like to manifest. This psychic also got several things right about me including my thinking it’s too late to find love, my absolute distaste for all things dating apps (i mean just NO), a couple of my relatives that have passed and the manner in which they died, the fact that I have a hard time finding and keeping friends who don’t use me as a free therapist (apparently I am a healer?) and last, but certainly not least, my own psychic and mediumship abilities, which he says are entering a time of growth. Something else he hit on was something so right in front of my face I can’t believe I never saw it. It was one quick comment that rocked my world in this reading and I probably should have directed some questions to it at the end, but it’s been a few weeks and I am just now allowing myself to start processing it. He said (in not exactly the same words) something happened in 2017 and whatever that was, that is why you have so much fear, anxiety and dread around your future. He went on to say that I am going to be fine. My finances are going to be fine. That it will all be cleaned up within five years. And then there’s that song he sold me that says I am going to be way more than fine, way more than happy and way more than in love. Damn, I hope it is true, but so much of what he told me about my present was 100% on point. Okay, back to the year two thousand seventeen. I was living in Florida. I had a great roommate who owned two of the most adorable dogs you’d ever see. We lived in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood that sat in-between the St. John’s River and the Intracoastal waterway. The closest beach was literally a ten minute drive away. I was working for a university and enjoying the academic setting, but not my paycheck. I had taken a very low level job to try to get into this field. I like helping people, I like working with students and to be honest, if I could be a life long student, I would be. Seriously, I’d have degrees in almost everything, starting with the natural, life and social sciences. Okay, back to the year two thousand seventeen. It was the year I became homeless and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. What had happened was…the house I was living in was being sold and my roommate was moving up the coast. I looked for a new place, but my budget was not on par with the market. I came to this job with a load of debt after an abrupt layoff at another company where I was making less than zilch. I couldn’t find a roommate or a place to land. At the last minute, a friend offered up her place and I accepted. The caveat was that it wasn’t her place. It was her fiancé’s home that she had just moved into. She said he was glad for the extra money so close to the wedding and honey moon, but I never really felt welcome in his home. He was never mean or rude to me, but I just felt like I was intruding. How could I not be? I stayed there through their wedding and honey moon and ended up leaving shortly after. Another friend approached me about her friend who needed a roommate. I met her, we talked, came to an agreement and I moved in and three days later I moved right back out. I was kicked out for absolutely no reason. I didn’t have a contract so I had to leave. I literally had to pack everything up and go where? I didn’t know. I ended up living the next few months with half of my stuff in my car and half of my stuff scattered among some friend’s garages. I stayed in someone else’s room and had to maneuver around another relationship, but this one was not so kosher. I eventually gave up and decided to quit my job and move back to the one place I had said I would never move back to: Memphis. So while I was never on the street, I also never really had a place to call home. All of my belongings were in boxes in people’s garages and I was tiptoeing around houses and trying not to disturb the couples in them. Before this happened, I was always one to think that everything always works out for the best, but what was the best in having all my carpets repeatedly ripped out from underneath me? I still do not have an answer, but I do have a lot of fear, anxiety and dread. I’ve been laid off multiple times and I might have another one looming in the next few weeks, if not the next few months. Every job I have chosen since I left Los Angeles has ended in a lay off! And I have had a hard time finding decent work after every single lay off. The only difference is that I have been living with a relative for the past few layoffs, but I can’t keep staying here. I do admit, that I am horrified to be back out on my own. I am horrified for my future. I have even come up with a suicide plan for when the day comes that I am too old to work and have no way to earn money to care for myself. It’s funny that I was never afraid until the layoffs started happening. And the nail that destroyed my balloon was becoming homeless twice in the span of a week. I don’t know why I never connected the two. I also don’t know why everything has been a dead end since I left LA. I don’t have any desire to move back to that part of the country. Maybe I was supposed to stay in the media world? Maybe I was supposed to move into the nonprofit sector like I was trying to do in LA before I left? I have no idea. This is something I am going to have to really chew on especially, with another potential layoff looming in the near future. I need to figure out why the layoffs keep happening and what the lesson is so I can learn it and get my life back on a track? Right now, I’m not even on a trail. I’m in a boulder field and while I love some adventure, I prefer to leave it for my weekend explorations and not my actual life. Interestingly enough, the psychic did say that I was moving into a phase of rebuilding my life and that starts when the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve. P.S. Interested in the psychic? Email me. Over the past several years I have lived with an undercurrent of anger and anxiety. All the self-help, therapy and zen living practices could not help me. No matter what I tried to do to stop or calm this undercurrent; it prevailed. I eventually started thinking that maybe I did need medication. Not that medication had worked in the past, but maybe this time would be different.
My past bouts with actual medication included Xanax and Paxil. The Xanax was only used sparingly during panic attacks. The Paxil sent me into orbit and caused a psychotic break. Needless to say, I stopped trying medication after that whole “becoming someone else” scenario. This time around I decided to try emotional support supplements. The first one I tried was a Stress Response supplement that you can get at any Sprouts, Whole Foods and a number of other places. I liked the affect, however, I started noticing that I had trouble keeping my heart at a resting rate. I noticed this more at night and I definitely could not combine it with any calming herbal teas. The increased heart rate was slight, but enough to cause problems at night so I eventually went off of this supplement. Next I tried THC-Free CBD. I had read of soooo many people who had major breakthroughs with CBD. People who had issues with anxiety, stress, depression, and obsessive thoughts all saw major improvements so I thought I’d give this a try. I did my research, found a certified clean supplier and purchased some capsules. I have to say the THC-Free CBD did wonders for my obsessive thoughts. I literally had none for the two to three weeks I was taking it. It was like Heaven for those few weeks inside my head. Unfortunately, the THC-Free CBD also lowered my blood pressure to the point that I started fainting every time I stood up. It was a very slow process that culminated in a few weeks time. At first, I started feeling like I couldn’t breathe even though I could take deep slow breaths. Everything became harder to do and my body slowly started to feel like it was aging at warp speed. Then the vertigo started occurring every time I stood up. Within a few days I was full out fainting and I knew my little magic pill had to go away. Next up, I tried Ashwagandha. This ancient herb has been used for centuries for a multitude of health benefits, including its ability to promote calm and balance hormones. I did my research and virtually no one had any issues with this herb so I gave it a try. I enjoyed the calming affect. It was not as good as the CBD at helping my obsessive thoughts, but it did calm me down and promote a feeling of “ahhh”. But then it kind of turned on me. I began to notice that I had more trouble calming myself down when I got mad or irritated. I also noticed that I began to have MORE anxiety. I went from being a somewhat cautious driver to being a paranoid and scared out of her mind driver. I literally thought every car on the interstate was either going to come into my lane and crash into me or every car was going to bully me off the road. I cried and screamed my entire way home for a few days and decided that maybe I should get off of the Ashwagandha. I quickly returned to my normal functioning within a few days. There is one more supplement that I actually have, but have not tried it yet. 5-HTP. Many people with anxiety and depression have gotten off of their medications by using this and are doing much better. Others have had terrible side effects and implore people to not even try it. It is sitting on my dresser in my bedroom, unopened. I am a little apprehensive to give it a try to say the least. The others I mentioned did not really have side effects, but they affected me. Not so sure I should try one with known side effects. And so the dilemma persists. Do I try this last supplement? Once I get back on insurance, do I give Xanax a try since I never took it on the regular? Do I really want to get back on something that I have to have in order function? Do I even want that life again? I did that when I was a raging alcoholic. Regardless of whether I ever bring alcohol back into my life, I do not want to be in a position to need a substance to function ever again! Do I continue with meditation and nature walks and soothing music and just deal with the waves of anger and anxiety as they come? For me, this is the anxiety dilemma. I have an undercurrent in my life that I seemingly cannot control. Life would be so much easier if I could just take this edge off a little bit. Control the incessant talk in my head just a little bit. But at what cost does that little bit come? I am as fixed as I am mutable and I am as brave as I am timid. Maybe I just need to make friends with the part of me that I am trying to shut out. Maybe I need to learn how to use this side of myself to my advantage. One of the things I learned while on these supplements was this - I need that side of myself that I would rather keep hidden from others. It is a raging warrior. It is strong. And without it - I’m not so sure I would still exist. I am part raging warrior and I am part timid child. Maybe what I need to realize is that one cannot exist without the other and make friends with them both. |
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