Posted by finelinebob on September 7, 2007, at 9:32:13
In reply to Question to us, posted by allisonm on May 22, 2007, at 8:18:12
> We've all been around here on this site since or before 2000. So we're looking at a minimum of 6 or 7 years together. Seems many of us don't visit anymore or much. Sometimes that can mean things are better. Or maybe you have given up.
>
> Just wondering: Is anything better with you since you started posting here? Are things about the same? Worse?Hi Alli!
Me? I walk a crooked path, so from time to time it brings me here.
Not that it's crooked because it's up and down, but more that it wanders ... my interests, my time, my meds, the conditions of my life -- they all wander. I find myself coming back when I need it, when I miss all of you too much, or when one of those wanderings stirs some interest in coming back to the main boards.
Like being on a new med (Vyvanse) that's not all that new maybe (no stranger to prescription amphetamines) or maybe it is. I just know that given my current cocktail, my psychopharmer (with apologies to the good Dr. Bob for that turn of phrase, and I happen to like my current 'tender very much as well) said something to the effect of "Hmmph, your brain seems to like dopamine" which makes me feel special.
Nothing wrong with my seratonin, as I told my previous NYC psychopharmer. Well, not that much at least. Maybe a little, but no SSRI's for me if you please. They can make me downright psychotic-like and, funny coincidence, I happen to be on not one but two atypical anti-psychotics now.
Okay, since I brought it up -- oldest to newest -- klonopin, nortriptyline, lamictal, focalin (but...), abilify (...as a trial replacement for focalin -- scratch it out for a month) vyvanse.
That's right -- a benzo, 2 anti-psychotics, and an amphetamine. Like Pete Townsend wrote, "Uppers and downers / either way blood flows". And I like an occasional T&T, but no "Doctor Bobby and Mister Bob" for me, quite normal usually if you please.
All of those were Quadrophenia references if you don't know the Who. That used to be my therapy. Turn it up to 11 and listen to it end to end. 2 hours, 100 dB -- it shakes things loose. Especially with air guitar, jumps, slides and windmills and all. Even smashing my air guitar at the end of it all. Those were the days....
That's Tanqueray & Tonic, top shelf for me. But of 1.75 litres (two separate gifts from separate colleagues who knew I was a gin drinker) I've only had about 200 ml in about a year's time. 10 more years' worth of T&T's ... I hope gin ages well.
So things are better and worse and neither. Mom died last January. That was about as worst as is could get. She was sick a long time, she wanted to go for a long time, you wish her peace and think you've come to terms with it and are ready for it ... then it happens and 30 year old stuff blindsides you. So your PTSD acts up in a major way, you have a person even crazier than you are as a CEO, that person makes a disasterous business decision and has you to blame it on and fire.
But you have 6-8 months of money sitting in the bank for just such an emergency ... it's springtime in New York ("I love New York in June, how about you?") then summertime and the ex-boss settles before you haul their corporate butts into court for a very messy ADA discrimination/wrongful dismissal case, it's fall in New York and people are hiring again. Or so I've been told.
Part of me still wants to file a complaint with the EEOC (tho I couldn't benefit from it personally) about the ADA stuff, but I already know the EEOC cares not one wit about mental health and the ADA and my potential lawsuit had less than a 1% chance of winning. So I smile and move on.
Sorry -- I'm chatty because I haven't slept, I'm out of the bunker (Phil's term, he gets the credit) for a few hours at least, and I miss you all and so feel obligated (especially if Deb R or Noa stop by ... I know from other posts and other boards who else will peek in) to fill in the spaces between Babble and the Path.
But Alli, to get right to your question ... and yeah, this may be a bit arrogant of me and pompous of me but I'm a BSEd MA MA ABD OCD ADD BSM so I feel entitled to my opinion: Why don't we visit so much? Here's my theory...
When there were so few of us, we all helped each other and whether we got better or stayed worse, we got tight. As more people found Babble, we kinda took an "Elder" position, answering questions that had been asked again and again, coming up with YMMV, depending on Cam W for those pharmacological treatises (Canadian tho they were =*P). And, eventually, some of those newer people became Elders and we could retire. Too many new people, too many of the same questions, too little energy (except for a few of us who still have the energy to do it even now!). We passed the torch. In doing so, we made a passage. We come upon new ones here and there, but we have the skills to at least seek the support we know is here and sometimes to find the answers we need. But we aren't driven to educate the next generation of Babble-Elders.
Hmm ... maybe it's time for like a Babble 2001-2003 board....what's the length of a Babbleland generation? 2 years sound good? Grandparents of Babble get a generational board?
Can we make Dr. Bob's life even more of a living computer hell (or does he now have work-study students to manage the technical end of the day-to-days?)?
Is anything better for me? I'm still stage 4, tho regressed to stage 1 for January to April at least. My talk therapy stages, for those who forgot ... 1 = talk about what you need to talk about, 2 = talk about what you want to talk about, 3 = talk about what you DON'T want to talk about, 4 = talk about those things you didn't want to talk about so bad that you made yourself (almost) forget they even happened. It hurts when it happens. It makes me angry at myself. It provides good fodder for journaling. And I feel better after all the kvetching is over.
Don't know if there's a stage 5. I'll cross that path when I cross it.
poster:finelinebob
thread:758774
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/2000/20050828/msgs/781358.html