Meat Shield

I’m struggling with my Depression right now. I have been for about a week. While it fluctuated throughout the week, the general trend was that it was ebbing; that I was climbing out of it. My Depression had other ideas.

I’ve been sharing quick posts on various social media just about every day for several months, now. You can learn more about that effort here: #MentalHealthDailyCheckin » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com). I find it helpful to take stock of how I am feeling at the time and put it into words. It gives me the benefit that others may get from keeping a journal. And sharing helps me. And my sharing helps others (feedback I have gotten from this effort has been profound).

The section below is a timeline of my check-ins during the week.

The Great Space Coaster of mental health challenges last week

Note: See The Great Space Coaster – Wikipedia for details on what that is. It’s a great 1980s reference that at least some of you will likely appreciate. That title is also an apt metaphor for the ups and downs I went through over the week. Try and keep up.

I had a big anxiety spike on the evening of Saturday, April 8th. It came out of nowhere. Just BAM! On Sunday, Easter Sunday, when Christians of various flavors celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection, I posted about it.

On Monday, I shared about the weekend.

That “giant bag of dicks” reference comes from this post: The Trouble With Postmortem Compassion » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com)

I repost that section here for your convenience, although I do recommend reading the full post linked above. I’ve seen it; it’s pretty good.

A giant bag of dicks

A few years ago, I was on a leave of absence from my job due to my Depression and Anxiety being a giant bag of dicks. I should share a little background here and since it worked so well above, I’m going to use a List.

Depression is a dick.
Anxiety is a dick.
“Depression and Anxiety” does NOT equal “Depression + Anxiety” in the way that having “two apples and three plums” means you have (2+3=5) five pieces of fruit.
Rather, it is more like Depression to the power of Anxiety (or vice-versa); each one making the other “a lot worse.”
Whenever something is troublesome, having “a giant bag” of that something is “a lot worse.” Since having one hornet nest is bad enough, having a giant bag of hornet nests would be a total shit-show.
Thus, Depression (which is a dick) and Anxiety (which is a dick) yields a “giant bag of dicks” rather than “two dicks.”
Math, y’all.

Moving on.

I didn’t have the energy to post on Tuesday. On Wednesday, my check-in showed some improvement, although I still didn’t have much energy.

Thursday included a session with my therapist that was super helpful.

On Friday, I was pretty proud of how I managed to get through the week.

This hopefulness seems to have pissed of my Depression. It pounced on me bigtime yesterday. What a dick.

I’ve done a lot of hard work over the past few years to work through, or “process,” trauma from my childhood. Essentially, this means I have, with the help of therapy and coping mechanisms, softened the sharper edges of my traumatic memories to make them less painful as they rattle around on in my head. You can read more about that here: Trauma, EMDR, and the Kobayashi Maru Test » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com).

I’ve shared that a lot of my trauma stems from my Dad’s sexual assault of a minor and everything related to that. You can read more about that here (trigger warning: that post contains references to sexual assault and prison): John Cazale and Inmate 19250 » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com).

Safety

When I was a kid, my Dad had always been calm and collected. I have zero memory of his having yelled at me or anyone else. Despite others of his generation subscribing to the idea that it is OK to hit your kids, I have zero memory of his having done so to me or my brothers. He had also been a firefighter and knew how to keep his head in a crisis. I always felt safe with him. I always felt that he would keep me safe.

Very soon after his arrest (the same day or the next, I cannot recall exactly), I was sitting with my parents at our dining room table while they chain-smoked. I don’t remember any particular topics of conversation; it’s possible it was just a chain of uncomfortable silences to go along with the cigarettes.

Then there was a knock at the outer door to our front porch. It was a TV news crew.

What the hell is a Meat Shield?

In fantasy role-playing games, and I suppose other games that would involve some form of fighting in groups, there are different roles that members of a group will play. The 3 most common are the Damage Dealer (who specialized in harming the enemy, but is not capable of sustaining a lot of damage), the Tank (who specialized in absorbing damage and trying to get the enemies to attack THEM rather than their more fragile group-mates), and the Healer (who is very fragile and works to keep the Tank alive). These are all roles that players CHOOSE to have their characters play.

I have an affinity for Paladins (see A Bully and a Hero: Depression and My Paladin » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com)), who often make excellent Tanks. It is important to remember that a Tank CHOOSES this role. They choose to take lots of damage and risk to protect their friends, allies, whoever. They also choose to build their character to try to succeed at doing so: donning the best armor they can, maximizing their health and ability to survive. Some will also refer to Tanks at Meat Shields; someONE you hide behind so the enemy hits THEM instead of YOU.

More often, Meat Shield is the term used to apply to some living creature that you place between the enemy and you, absorbing damage, whether that creature wants to or not. They are more of a sacrifice than a partner. You can think of war movies in which soldiers will use corpses for cover when they don’t have better options like sandbags. There are also examples in movies where someone grabs an unwitting enemy to hold in front of them while they advance, protecting themselves at the expense of the enemy (who almost always gets killed). Non-evil characters tend not to use allies and teammates as Meat Shields because it’s a terrible way to treat a friend. Or someone you love.

I was on TV!

My Dad told me to go see who it was at the door. I told him it was a TV news crew. With out a pause, he told me to go tell them this was private property and they needed to leave. I was scared. I was nervous. I didn’t want to do that… But, I did as I was told. I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I was trapped.

When they heard me come to the door, the camera made a whirring sound as it turned on and quickly swung to face me. I opened that outer door and the reporter immediately swung the microphone to my face. I was fighting back tears, and it took everything I had to speak instead of sob. I felt embarrassed. I felt vulnerable. I felt scared. I managed to plead with them to leave and went back inside the house. They eventually left.

The story on the news that night showed me coming to the door and speaking while the reporter, instead of using the audio of what I said, just said that my Dad “sent his teenage son” to deal with them. The tone was not complimentary. It was plain to the reporter that I was being tossed to them instead of my Dad dealing with them himself.

My Dad’s Meat Shield

This scene has been playing out over and over in my mind all week. It’s not one of my favorite memories. It’s not a shining moment of courage from my Dad. It’s not an example of how parenting should work. On that day, my Dad, who had always helped me to feel safe, tossed me to the wolves to protect himself. He took his shame and embarrassment, laid them upon my shoulders and sent me out alone while he hid behind doors and curtains and HIS YOUNGEST FUCKING SON. And he didn’t even hesitate to do it. This has been the trauma that my Depression has been beating me with this past week.

I don’t have a witty connection to close out this post. I guess, the best I can come up with is this: There are ways to show someone you love them; using them as a Meat Shield isn’t one of them.

The Unexpected Treasure of the Public Library

I’m feeling overwhelmed by some family stuff today, so I thought I would spend some time thinking about a happier, easier time in my life when my oldest brother introduced me to the Nashua Public Library. I want to note that while this post is based on actual events, there will be some dramatization as I only really remember the broad strokes. Any similarity to persons, real or imagined, is intentional but may not be 100% accurate. Nashua, NH, is a real place, but has changed quite a bit since I was there. It’s still about an hour north of Boston, MA.

This post includes references to bicycles and libraries. And books, I guess. And a river. The Nashua River, to be exact. And a bridge across that river. Neither the river nor the bridge are major players here, but details help flesh things out, yeah?

Note to self: Stop rambling and get to the damn story.

Right.

O, Brother

My oldest brother, Gerry, played lots of roles in my life growing up. He taught me a lot of things, including how to throw a baseball and football (not at the same time), how to play basketball, how to ice skate, how to play several card games, etc. He was sometimes my guardian (not in a legal capacity) when he took me on bike rides and also lots of fishing trips. He was often my tormentor as well, but this is a happy post, so we’ll leave that alone for now.

The adventure begins

I forget how old I was, maybe 6 or something like that. But one day, Gerry came to me and said, “Let’s go for a bike ride. I want to show you something.” Being the youngest of three boys, I was always eager when either of my brothers wanted to spend time with me.

Gerry and I got on our bikes and rode down our street, Chandler Street, to where it ended at a t-intersection with Canal Street right across from the Sanders building (big defense contractor, I think). I use “down” both in the colloquial sense of heading in a southerly direction and the fact that Chandler Street had two significant hills. The neighborhood was, and still is, referred to as French Hill. We lived partway up the northern hill on Chandler Street so the first chunk of our journey was downhill quite a bit.

We banged a right on Canal Street, eventually riding past the apartment building my mom and I would eventually move to when we lost our house to foreclosure in my teens (not going into this right now; happy post, remember?), until we came to Main Street and hooked a left.

A quick terminology note

In Nashua, there was no turning. No one turned. It simply wasn’t done. Whether you were in a car, on a motorcycle, on a bike, on a Big Wheel, or even just plain walking, if you changed course in a right-hand direction, you “banged a right.” If you changed course in a left-hand direction, you “hooked a left.”

The grammarian/writer in me wonders why one needed to even specify the directions at all since the words “bang” and “hook” are already different. But I was not consulted at the time. And I’m not sure if this linguistic idiosyncrasy is still in place in Nashua since I have lived in Minnesota for over 20 years. Just trying to keep it real.

The adventure continues

Main Street heading south took us over the Nashua River across the Main St. Bridge. Apparently, city planners were not rewarded for creativity. After a few blocks, we then hooked another left and headed up the hill on Park Street, a process that required me to get off my bike and walk it since I didn’t have the pedal power to make it all the way up; and the zig zagging up a hill that increases distance but allows for a shallower angle of descent was not an option as we were limited to using the sidewalk.

Arrival

At the top of the hill, I was out of breath, tired, and thirsty AF as this was a pretty long ride for me at the time (a little under 1 mile). But when Gerry brought his bike over to the rack, and motioned for me to do the same, locking them together, I figured we were close to what he wanted to show me.

The main entrance to the library had these tall, heavy doors, as I remember. In my memory they a dark metal or perhaps wood. Recent pictures I can find online today show glass front doors but I don’t know if my memory is mistaken or if the library just has the wrong goddam doors and they need to fix it. There’s just no way to know.

A new world of treasures

As Gerry led me into the library, there was this smell that I can’t forget. Oddly enough, it smelled like books. Like when you open a book that may not have been opened for a while and there is a kind of sweetness to it. It smells so inviting. I still get hints of this smell when I go into libraries today, but not nearly as strongly.

The main desk was right in front of us, a large wooden countertop that went on and on in both directions. Behind that counter were the library staff helping patrons check out and return books, answering questions, and many other duties. Checking out books required one of those hand stamps, because this was back before libraries, at least this one, were digitized. It was magical.

Off to the left was the card catalog: rows and rows of little drawers of index cards, each corresponding to a volume in the library. It was still based on the Dewey Decimal System, as I recall. I had not learned that system yet, though. I also had not learned what a total fucking asshole Dewey himself was. I’ll let you look that stuff up on your own. Again, this is supposed to be a happy post.

Off to the right, as I recall was the multimedia section containing racks of vinyl records and albums with headphones for listening. No computers, for sure. This was the early 1980s after all.

Wrong treasures, dude

As I marveled at these new-to-me surroundings, I realized that Gerry was repeating my name with gradually increasing volume, trying to recapture my attention. He had banged a sharp right immediately upon entering the library and I had missed it. There was an alcove there. He gestured to have me join him. He leaned down toward the wall as I approached, but stood tall once I reached him, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and an air of absolute contentment.

Gerry had brought me on this journey to share with me a treasure. That I may know of it. That I may share in its wonder. That I may pass on this knowledge to those I deem worthy. There was a small stepstool next to it, which Gerry pulled into place with his foot. Without it, due to my size, the treasure would have been quite literally beyond my reach.

I stepped up onto the stool and leaned forward. Gerry pressed the button on the right of this magical device and the most delicious, ice-cold water hit my lips. Like the smell of the library, the water had a hint of sweetness to it (I don’t want to think about what that was). I drank and drank; the smell of the books forgotten; the soft thuds of the hand stamps behind the desk forgotten.

“Remember this bubblah,” he said, as though passing on the greatest wisdom. This device, if you have not gleaned via context clues, is known in most places, I believe, as a water fountain or a drinking fountain. But in Nashua and the surrounding area, they were known as bubblers, or, more properly pronounced, “bubblahs.” There was one on the other side of the doors, that you could reach by hooking a left as you entered the library instead of banging a right. He motioned across to that left one, “That one sucks. THIS one is always like this: ice-cold.”

The journey home

When we were both satisfied, he led me back outside without even a glance at the books or any other vessels of knowledge the Nashua Public Library kept preserved within its walls. ANYONE could go there and get books and stuff. But our purpose was life itself.

As we biked home, I felt like I was changed. A new person; one equipped with the location of the finest drinking water known to humankind.

Riding a bike down Chandler Street is glorious. Up, on the other hand, is fucking awful.

Epilogue

Throughout my childhood, I went back to the library many times. Each time, I banged a hard right on the way in and drank from that glorious bubblah. There were even times when I went to the library and there were books involved.

I haven’t been back to the Nashua Public Library in decades. And even if I did, I don’t think I would have the courage to drink from that bubblah. The idea of drinking from a public water fountain today makes me feel ill. I think it’s one of those “remember when we were kids and used to do this and OMG how did we not die” kind of things. Lawn Darts. Driving around in the back of my dad’s van on folding lawn chairs.

But I enjoyed that bubblah while I could. And Gerry was right. It was always ice-cold.

The Trouble With Postmortem Compassion

Objects in mirror are closer than they appear

It is not common for me to start a post by citing the United States Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, but here we are. Assuming I do this right, my choice here will make sense shortly. I hope.

S5.4.2 Each convex mirror shall have permanently and indelibly marked at the lower edge of the mirror’s reflective surface, in letters not less than 4.8 mm nor more than 6.4 mm high the words “Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.”
eCFR :: 49 CFR Part 571 — Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards

I’m not sure when this was added to these standards. I was going to do a little more research to determine that. Then, I came to several realizations one right after the other:

I don’t give shit.
You don’t give a shit.
Acknowledging when this requirement was added to the standards has no bearing whatsoever on this post.
Given the above realizations, including the enumeration of these realizations here provides no value but I did it anyway.
I can be a real jackass sometimes.

There’s science behind why convex mirrors can give you the impression that whatever you see in the mirror looks further away than it is. You are more than welcome to look that up. But I’m going to continue.

A giant bag of dicks

Depression is a dick.
Anxiety is a dick.
“Depression and Anxiety” does NOT equal “Depression + Anxiety” in the way that having “two apples and three plums” means you have (2+3=5) five pieces of fruit.
Rather, it is more like Depression to the power of Anxiety (or vice-versa); each one making the other “a lot worse.”
Whenever something is troublesome, having “a giant bag” of that something is “a lot worse.” Since having one hornet nest is bad enough, having a giant bag of hornet nests would be a total shit-show.
Thus, Depression (which is a dick) and Anxiety (which is a dick) yields a “giant bag of dicks” rather than “two dicks.”
Math, y’all.

My oldest, Paige, had her learner’s permit for driving, meaning she could legally drive with either me or my wife in the car with her. She was playing Cello at the time and took lessons from an amazingly awesome music teacher about ten minutes away. Since the giant bag of dicks (see above) made being around people REALLY HARD and uncomfortable, I went with Paige to her lessons, but instead of going into the teacher’s house with her, I sat in the car trying to read, usually with at least some success (trouble concentrating is a pretty common symptom of giant bags of dicks).

It was lovely weather at the time so I sat in the passenger seat with the windows down. The music teacher lived on a pretty quiet street so it was wonderfully peaceful. I was having trouble reading so I put my tablet down and looked out the window, my eyes drawn to the side-view mirror. I still shudder and get waves of super intense emotion and shock when I recall what I saw in the mirror that day.

Eye scream

As I have shared before (see Trauma, EMDR, and the Kobayashi Maru Test » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com)), my mother suffered from Bipolar Disorder. And she struggled a lot. For decades. And when she was really having a hard time, even when she couldn’t form the words or the noises necessary to scream in aguish and exhaustion and rage and sorrow and defiance and surrender, she had this look in her eyes that I can only describe as screaming. Despite the countless times I saw my mother’s eyes scream, I didn’t realize what it was until a particular day (years after her death) when I was sitting in my car outside a music teacher’s house.

As I looked in that mirror, and saw my eyes, the rest of my face changed to be my mother’s face. But the eyes were identical. It looked just like how you might see a transformation in movie. My face faded out, except my eyes, and suddenly I was looking at my mom. My eyes were screaming in aguish and exhaustion and rage and sorrow and defiance and surrender. No. That’s not right. OUR eyes were screaming in aguish and exhaustion and rage and sorrow and defiance and surrender.

In that profound moment, I realized how much I had in common with my mom in a way I never had before. In that profound moment, I realized how alone my mom had been most of her life. How much pain she was in. How much she needed someone on her side in a way that actually felt helpful to her. In that profound moment, the decades of compassion that my mother desperately needed but was denied descended on me without mercy, pummeling me, like someone was beating me with a… well… a giant bag of dicks.

I wrote a poem. Honest.

A few days after this, I wrote a poem about this experience. I infused it with anguish. I infused it with transformation. I infused it with newfound compassion. I called it Eye Scream. And I lost it. Can’t find it anywhere. As I was writing this post today, I came to several realizations one right after the other:

That poem was actually pretty damned good.
I was proud of it.
I don’t need a poem to share this experience or what I took from it.
I don’t need to enumerate these realizations here but I did it anyway.
I can be a real jackass sometimes.

Assigning blame

For so many of us, when we see/hear about/experience something we deem to be “bad” or “suboptimal” or “wrong,” our reaction is to want to find someone or something to blame for it. It has to be somebody’s fault. Often, we end up pinning all this blame on some individual or group of people we seek to marginalize or exclude. There are places to pin some blame for what my mother went through, perhaps, but at the moment I feel like providing a list (lots of lists today, yeah?) of someones and somethings that were decidedly NOT at fault here in any way:

Vaccines
The Infield Fly Rule
People named Chet
My oldest brother’s hamster, Ginger, that I used to throw across our porch
- I need to point out here that this was a thing I did several times. I was really little and kept wanting to hold Ginger and SOMEONE kept letting me hold Ginger despite the inevitable throwing of Ginger across the porch when her tiny claws tickled my palm and I was afraid she would bit me. So, there is actually some blame that comes into play here. But not related to my mom.
The Solid Gold Dancers (look it up)

A call to action

I try to focus my posts on my own experiences rather than trying to push anyone to take any particular action. I am going to diverge from that just a little here. I still have such regret that I didn’t give my mom the support she so desperately needed. I don’t blame myself, but I can’t help thinking about the profound impact it could have had for my mom if I had treated her with more empathy. She’s gone. I can’t change that. I found compassion for her in the end. But she wasn’t there to feel it. THIS FEELING SUCKS SO MUCH YOU GUYS.

If there is someone close you that you have trouble finding empathy for, my call to action for you is to take a moment to think about what they may be going through. Try to see the world through their eyes. Try to see what they see when they look in the mirror and how it might be affecting them. After all, as I can tell you from my own experience, you may just realize: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

Trauma, EMDR, and the Kobayashi Maru Test

Given today is September 11th, and it is 20 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, I figured it is as good a day as any to blog about trauma. This post is not about 9/11. Or where I was or what I did or some romanticized version of my experiences or actions on this day in 2001. My personal experience is not very important here. But 9/11, as the overall events as a whole have come to be called, was for MANY, including me, a traumatic event. Given that, I think it will be helpful to discuss trauma and it’s effects in a context that many people can relate to.

What is Trauma, anyway?

There are a number of ways that various organizations define trauma. In this case, I am not referring to the physical sense of trauma like a wound or injury. But rather, the trauma I’m talking about is more of an emotional wound or injury.

Trauma: a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury; an emotional upset; an agent, force, or mechanism that causes trauma
Trauma | Definition of Trauma by Merriam-Webster

Trauma: a deeply distressing or disturbing experience
TRAUMA English Definition and Meaning | Lexico.com (Oxford)

The very succinct, but inclusive definition from Lexico above captures it best in my opinion. The key being that trauma is “deeply” distressing or disturbing. So, getting pickles on your hamburger when you asked for no pickles is not a traumatic event. But terrorists taking over commercial airliners to crash them into buildings most definitely is. Those events created a massive amount of distress, even for people like me who were very far removed from the events and had no particular personal connection to anyone involved. I’m confident that a lot of you out there who would say the same.

BANG Trauma

The 9/11 attacks are a great example of a point in time trauma. An event. A “flash-in-the-pan” if you will. This is similar to an assault, a car crash, or some other moment that happens relatively quickly, but then has lingering effects on you. Let’s call this BANG Trauma.

WOOSH Trauma

Some trauma takes place over a course of time and is more environmental, but still has the nature of being deeply distressing or disturbing. A great example of this would be the COVID-19 global pandemic. While this may encompass individual BANG Trauma events for people, like the loss of a loved one, getting laid off from your job, or some imbecile trying to give you horse medicine (WTF?), it also created an environment that was quite distressing over many months and is still going. Let’s call this WOOSH Trauma.

Honor Thy Mother and Father

It is pretty common that the impact our parents have on us is not all positive. Whether through their actions or inactions, their words or their silences, their presence or absence, we’re all going to have some shit to deal with that traces back to Mom and/or Dad.

Goodbye, Florence

The majority of my trauma comes from my parents. This is not uncommon. The cliché of going to a psychiatrist or therapist to “talk about your mother” is alive in well in popular culture, movies, TV, etc. But it got to be a cliché for a reason. Our parents can have an incredible impact on us. In fact, I would argue, that having an incredible impact on us is their job. Just like it is my job to have an incredible impact on my children. It’s just that this impact isn’t always positive.

My mom, Florence, suffered from Bipolar Disorder back when it was referred to as Manic Depression. People who live with this can have their mood swing profoundly between deep depression and the more high-energy, excited “manic” state. My mom had a pretty hard go of it with a husband who didn’t necessarily understand or support her, but was quite willing to put her in the hospital when it became too hard to “manage” her. Sometimes, during these manic periods, she would decided to stop taking her medication (lithium) because she didn’t want to go back to that more subdued state that the Lithium help put her in.

These experiences, in which my mom’s showing emotion tended to land her in the hospital, laid the foundation for the wall I ended up erecting between me and my own emotions. Except anger, that is. More on that in a future post.

Hello, Flo

When I was in my early to mid teens, I don’t recall specifically, my mom had a major manic episode in and around accidentally inhaling some chemicals at work. Looking back, that was around the time we lost Florence. I lost my mom. In her stead, we got Flo who took over Florence’s body. Unlike Florence, Flo was a woman who gave no fucks and was irreverent and sometimes really fun and funny.

At this time, my dad was not living with us (BANG and WOOSH; more on this in a later post, perhaps). My older brothers (Gerry and Ray) were long out of the house, Gerry in Minnesota and Ray in Massachusetts. So, it was just Flo and me. We had lost the house I grew up in to foreclosure (BANG and some WOOSH) and were living in an Section 8 (low income rental assistance) apartment as Flo was no longer able to work.

BANGs and WOOSHes Galore

Flo had her good side. We made a game of finding new and creative ways to give each other the middle finger, which was often pretty funny. The first time one of my friends saw me give my mother the finger, they were shocked, “Did you seriously just flip off your mom?!” “Of course,” I said. “Why didn’t you?” From that point on my friends were in on the game, too.

But, Flo wasn’t always fun. Sometimes, she would decide to “cope” with her own pain by causing pain for others. Not in a physical sense. But in terms of manipulation or “causing a scene” or getting someone else to have to drop everything they wanted to do to deal with Flo. Since it was just me and Flo, the most common target for this was me (plenty of BANG and WOOSH and more WOOSH).

How Do You DO This?

My oldest brother, Gerry, and I were pall bearers for my paternal grandmother’s funeral. We needed to go a bit early. The plan was for my other brother, Ray, to bring Flo and meet us there. They never showed up. When Gerry and I got back to the apartment after the funeral, Ray was huddled in a corner in utter anguish (BANG). Flo was sitting at the kitchen table with an air of profound satisfaction at what she had been able to do (BANG and some WOOSH). She had taken this man who was fun and funny and always had a smile or a joke or a positive thing to say and turned him into a pile of goo. She had broken her son. And she LOVED it. (BANG much?)

As soon as he saw me, Ray just asked, “How do you DO this?” I didn’t have an answer for him at the time. One possibility can be found in A Bully and a Hero: Depression and My Paladin » Can’t Juggle (cantjuggle.com). Flo was able to wreck Ray in a few hours. The fact that I spent years as her only target and am still here is pretty miraculous. Please understand that this is not about Ray being weak. He is one of the strongest people I have ever met. Nor is it about me being some sort of exceptional person. I’m really not.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

EMDR is a psychotherapy treatment for trauma-related disorders like PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). In times of great stress or danger, our Amygdala, which controls our Fight/Flight/Freeze processing in our brains, can activate our OH SHIT! system. When that happens, our logical processing centers of the brain get shut out. A traumatic event which triggers this OH SHIT! system can cause our Amygdala to ring the OH SHIT! bell whenever it perceives a situation to be like the original event. For example, combat veterans suffering from PTSD can have their OH SHIT! processing triggered by a loud noise that has nothing to do with combat.

During the Fight/Flight/Freeze process, our body chemistry is altered to enable us to have the burst of energy we need to survive a deadly situation. After that burst, we can get super fatigued as that burst of energy comes at a cost. Having our OH SHIT! system activate a lot means we get that burst of energy a lot which means we have to pay that cost a lot. It’s brutally draining.

The goal of EMDR is to try to get our Amygdala to form a new pathway in place of the OH SHIT! one in response to events it perceives as similar to the original trauma. That is the Reprocessing. It is trying to train your brain to stop triggering the Fight/Flight/Freeze response in mundane situations where we really don’t need our OH SHIT! system activated.

I’m Trapped

To start the process, I spent several sessions with my therapist, Ashley, taking an inventory of the trauma I could remember and identify. Yes. It took several sessions to get through it all. We then worked to identify a theme, a feeling that formed the core experience with each BANG and WOOSH. I landed on “I’m trapped.” That is the one sentiment that fit perfectly in all the BANGs and all the WOOSHes. So much of my trauma involved events or situations in which I felt like I had no way out. I had no way to win. I just kept finding myself taking the fucking Kobayashi Maru test. Over and over.

Starfleet Academy’s Kobayashi Maru Test

The Kobayashi Maru Test first appeared in the 1982 film Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan. It also features in the 2009 reboot film, Star Trek. The test involves a distress signal from a civilian ship, the Kobayashi Maru, that has become stranded in the Neutral Zone, a region of space between the Klingon Empire and the United Federation of Planets. Starfleet cadets taking the test must choose whether to help rescue the Kobayashi Maru, and risk major diplomatic incident and attack by Klingons, or leave the civilian ship, and its crew, to fairly certain destruction. Any cadets that attempt rescue end up facing a battle with Klingons that is designed to be completely unwinnable. Starfleet uses this test to measure the character of cadets and assess how they will function in the highly stressful environment of a “no-win scenario.”

I’m Strong

The goal with my course of EMDR was to reprocess these I’m Trapped situations into something more positive. Something that would not trigger my OH SHIT! system. Ray’s question, “How do you DO this?” inspired the more positive theme: “I’m strong.” We then had our course of action for my EMDR. We would reprocess “I’m Trapped” into “I’m Strong” and I’d be good to go. Simple. (sigh)

Physically, the process can involve actually moving your gaze side while doing this emotional work (hence the “Eye Movement” part). But that made me dizzy AF. So, we used little hand-held fobs that gently vibrate on and off and in alternating pattern.

Oh my god, you guys. EMDR is the most grueling thing I have ever done. By a lot. It is such hard, draining work to jump back into trauma (on purpose) with both feet in order build a new path out of it and make your brain choose this new path over the familiar one. I was on medical leave at the time and I can’t see how I could have worked and done EMDR at the same time. There’s just no way. Each one-hour session took 3-4 days to recover from. I was very fortunate to have a friend that would drive me to and from these appointments. Thank you, Megan.

While the “during” for EMDR suuuuuuuuucked, I have to say that the results, at least for me, were MAGICAL. I can’t promise the same for anyone else. Mental health, in general, doesn’t work that way. But this childhood trauma I had been carrying around my whole life got so much easier to carry, thanks to EMDR.

To Boldly Go…

James T Kirk is fabled to be the only Starfleet cadet ever to beat the Kobayashi Maru test. He did so by changing the simulation to make it possible to both rescue the Kobayashi Maru crew and defeat the Klingon attack. Kirk took an unwinnable situation and reprocessed it into a win. But he needed to cheat to do it.

Trauma can seem like a no-win scenario. It can seem like we are trapped. That there’s no way out. But there can be. It can take work, to be sure. But it can be done. I’ve done it. And I didn’t cheat once. Take that, Jim.

Meet Dave: My Anxiety Vampire

Personification and Externalization

I have found great value in personifying and externalizing my mental illnesses and other aspects of the wild ride my brain treats me to. But what the hell does this even mean? Well, dear reader, I shall explain using some very concise and easy definitions adapted from Reid Wilson, Ph.D., Director of the Anxiety Disorders Treatment Center in Chapel Hill, NC, and contributor to Psychology Today. He is also that author of several books, including Stopping the Noise in Your Head.

I adapted the definitions below from Dr. Wilson’s article Wrestling With Anxiety in the Canadian Wilderness from May of 2020. It’s a brief, easy read and I recommend it. Anxiety, hiking, and bears! Oh, my!

Personification is the attribution of human-like identity to something, the subject, that is not a human. It is related to anthropomorphism in that it allows for treating the subject as a person you can address directly.

Externalization is perceiving of a part of yourself as being outside of yourself instead. Rather than being a part of you, it is something in a relationship with you.

Meet Dave

Face of Nosferatu from the 1922 film — Nosferatu

Since my Anxiety burst through the wall of my mind like the Kool-Aid Man a few years ago, I have been personifying and externalizing it in an effort to make it a bit easier to deal with. For me, my anxiety is a ferocious vampire (no stupid sparkling; #TeamAlice) named Dave that stands about 1 inch behind me almost all the time. Because he is so close, if he decides to get me, there is no possible way I would be able to prevent it. I am completely at his mercy.

When I look back at my childhood, and really throughout my entire life, I can see that Dave has been with me almost since day 1. I have always been leery and uncomfortable with my back to open doorways, darkness, or any other place where Dave or other creatures could be laying in wait for me.

What are you afraid of?

I was actually afraid A LOT as a kid. My parents even tried the practice of checking my room for monsters when they put me to bed. But, it didn’t work. You see, MY monsters were wily, persistent little shits; they would just come back as soon as my parents left the room or turned off the light. Nightlights were a huge deal for me; although I never had a blue canary nightlight until adulthood.

To this day, I seldom enjoy horror movies and tend to avoid them altogether. It still takes some effort, sometimes, to walk through a dark room in my house. Being outside alone after dark, even just to bring the trash and recycling bins to the curb, is often a nerve-wracking experience for me. I am able to push through and do what I need to do, but it takes more effort than it does for most people, I think.

Anxiety is not my enemy

Beavis kicking Butthead in the junk — Ouch

As humans evolved over the millennia, we developed fear and anxiety. These feelings helped to inspire caution, and ultimately helped us to survive as a species. It is easy for us to understand, today, that walking up a mountain lion and kicking it in the junk is not a scenario that is likely to end in our favor. But on a more primitive level, before we developed the brains we have today, it was the fear and caution that would have urged early humans to avoid junk-kicking exploits like this. Junk-kickers, those that didn’t exercise this caution, were less likely to be around long enough to procreate, making the junk-kicking trait less likely to pass on to future generations.

Thus, Anxiety, in a very real sense, was a vital asset to our success as a species. It exists as a means of trying to keep us safe. I find it helpful to keep this in mind and take it even a step further: Anxiety is not my enemy. It is a healthy part of me. It is not the fact that I experience anxiety that is a problem; it is the fact that I have an anxiety disorder that is the problem. My brain triggers anxiety far more frequently and forcefully than it needs to in its attempts to keep me safe. It sees more danger in more places or even just DANGER in all the places. Which brings us back to Dave.

Dave is my hero

Dave, as the personification and externalization of my anxiety, just wants to ensure my safety. He wants to keep me from being eaten. So, rather than standing 1 inch behind me to try and get me, he stands there to guard me. He has my back. My Generalized Anxiety Disorder makes Dave way more active than he needs to be. He needs to spend less time crying wolf and more time sitting in a corner with his coloring books and crayons. But he’s on my team (#TeamDave). He, like my Paladin, is my hero.

From Can’t Juggle But Did It Anyway To Just Can’t

What’s this blog about?

When I was thinking about starting a personal blog about my experiences with mental illness, namely, Depression and Anxiety, I wracked my brain for something interesting to call it. I wanted it to be memorable. I wanted it to be short. I wanted it to imply that there would be some humor thrown in. And I wanted it to have some meaning for me, preferably on more than one level. I’m pretty happy with where this landed. “Cant’ Juggle” accomplishes every one of those goals. Besides, Hippopotamus was taken. In this inaugural post, I will share the story behind the title; and hopefully give you a preview of the content you will find here if you choose to stick around.

Years ago, when I started working as a data professional, I got to attend a lot of conferences. Almost always, I was a speaker as well. I loved standing on a stage and teaching people about various tools and technologies and making them laugh while I did it. Some of these events would have community zone areas for just hanging out that were strewn with beanbag chairs. It was a great place to spend time between sessions, on meal brakes, etc. I met great people here and made friends.

Can’t juggle

At one particular event, I was in a community zone with several other folks, but it was largely empty. Many of the beanbag chairs were unoccupied. I decided to see if I could juggle them. Why? Was anyone else juggling these vacant beanbag chairs? Of course not. What moron would even think of such a thing? It certainly wasn’t because I could juggle. I could not. Maybe I figured the attempt would be fun and might even garner a few laughs.

So I thought, fuck it. Without a word, I walked over to a group of chairs, grabbed three, and moved to an open area away from anyone. Then I went for it, trying to figure out the mechanics of juggling as I went. The first bag I threw sailed about twelve feet away and hit the ground. I went and grabbed it and tried again. And again. And again.

Wow! Mark’s an AMAZING juggler! Just top notch!
~ No one. Ever.

It was hysterically bad. I never even came close. I spent far more time wandering about picking up the chairs I threw beyond my reach than anything else. But it was indeed fun and it did indeed garner some laughs, including from me. Then it became a mission. Whenever I was not in a session or when the community zone was sparsely populated (so my colossal failures didn’t hurt anyone), I could be found tossing beanbag chairs around like an imbecile.

Nothing personal, but….
Fuck this guy and his stoopid juggling.

Photo by juan pablo rodriguez on Unsplash

But did it anyway

Then it happened. With two chairs in my left hand, I threw one up. While it was coming down, I threw up the one in my right hand just before catching the chair that was already airborne. Then I did the same with my left hand and so on. Once. One full revolution, before it all went to shit. A few seconds of outright victory that tasted so sweet. Kind of like Fortune Bubble Gum from the 1980s. Wonderful for a few seconds and then death. I wasn’t aware of how racist the packaging, etc., was at the time. I was just a kid. But since I do now, I chose to just link to it instead of putting an image in here. Growth.

Did I stop there, having conquered a small corner of the beanbag chair juggling world? Did I end on a high note like when John Elway won the Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos in 1999 and then retired? Of course not. I kept at it. In all my attempts at subsequent conferences, I never succeeded again. I never successfully juggled anything else either.

This is not a cautionary tale about juggling beanbags or any other barely jugglable objects. This is not really a cautionary tale at all. But it does establish the kind of outgoing, fun-loving person that I was. I loved making people laugh. And sometimes I would try ridiculous things to make people laugh. And I loved it. I was presenting at conferences, and emceeing company meetings at the consulting firm I worked for, and being told (more than once) that I should hire myself out just to attend parties and functions because I brought so much energy and fun and humor with me wherever I went.

Just can’t

X All The Y Meme | CAN'T; ALL THE THINGS | image tagged in memes,x all the y | made w/ Imgflip meme maker

So, when I tell you that I have spent a substantial portion of the past 3 years afraid to leave my house; afraid to leave my basement office; afraid to be near people; near ANYONE; I want you to understand my full meaning.

I started having such soul-crushing fatigue from Depression that I actually didn’t know if I could keep breathing; actually despairing, “FUCK. I have to breath again in a few seconds…. How am I going to do that?”; or being perfectly still and getting so exhausted from it that I thought if I could just lay down, it would be better, only to realize I was already laying down; I was already doing NOTHING and it was too much (by a LOT). I was too exhausted to move, just from EXISTING. Too terrified of EVERYTHING to be near my family. From Can’t Juggle But Did It Anyway to just Can’t.

Where do we go from here?

In subsequent posts, I will walk through this descent in more detail, including some of the childhood trauma that had a major impact on me, even if it took a while to bubble over. I will also share how I came back from the mouth of the abyss. I’m back to work now, and have been for quite a while. I still have bad days, but fewer of them, and the ones I have are less bad.

I think that’s enough for this first post. I dug the foundation that future posts will be based on. Gave an inkling of the kinds of experiences I plan to share. I hope you will stick around for it. I’ll keep writing anyway. But if I can have this energy expenditure pay off by helping people, then so much the better.

One last thing. I have never heard of anyone else ever juggling beanbag chairs. So, I have to entertain the possibility that I may be the greatest beanbag chair juggler of all time. Just… you know. Just saying.

Addendum

My good friend, Doug Lane (blog|twitter) not only witnessed many of my beanbag chair juggling exploits, but even recorded some back in November of 2012 at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, WA. You can now see videos of my beanbag chair juggling, including my one an only success on my new page The Tiniest Bit of Juggling.