Posted by bob on April 5, 2000, at 1:34:43
In reply to Re: Stupidity causes dumbness... (prolly a long note):, posted by christi on April 4, 2000, at 22:27:16
"Schizophrenic? I'm Bleeding Quadrophenic!"
[but before I launch into a speech -- Kathy, I'm on nortriptyline, which is a moderate reuptake inhibitor of NE as well as a weak reuptake inhibitor or seratonin, and on ritalin, which according to the fat little manual on psychopharmacology that my apartmentmate owns "directly releases dopamine into the synapses", whatever that means. Not that I really know what a reuptake inhibitor is after all this time, either, but I get the general idea. TCAs generally affect NE. A lot of the newer meds affect several of these neurotransmitters at once. If you have a question about what you're taking, just ask -- someone here will know =^)]
Now, about that speech ...
The lenses of my eyes are misshapen and my eyeballs are too narrow front to back, but I see no reason to be "the real me" and go without my glasses. I guess I could just "behave" the right way -- get really close to things and squint -- but that technique doesn't work too well at 65 mph.
Sometimes my head hurts, from stress or work or from the ear infection I currently have ... but I see no reason I should be the real me and let my own natural pain killing and infection destroying systems take their natural course, nor do I feel any compunction to practice, say, biofeedback techniques to reduce the pain. Biofeedback really isn't the real me anyway.
My cholesterol levels just aren't as low as the average human's are, but I see no need to pursue that heart attack the genetically real me is striving towards just so that I can die when my body thinks it should, nor do I want to experience the several strokes that my father has indicated is my biological lot in life. I do what I can with diet and exercise, and Lipitor does the rest.
And a DAMN good job it does at that.
Now, the trauma I experienced growing up in my parents' house was the same set of circumstances that an older and a younger brother had to face as well. My older brother is not quite the mess that I am in some ways, and in other ways he's much worse off (after all, he's a blue collar republican ... talk about dazed and confused!). My younger brother--God bless him, his wife, and his one daughter and three sons--is living a life devoid of any sign that he went through what the rest of us went through.
So, is he who I'm supposed to be, if I just work at it a little harder?
Sure, environmental factors played a BIG role in creating who I am right now, and certainly my behaviors play a BIG role in maintaining that. But while I can have laser surgery to reshape my eyes, and I can start practicing those meditation techniques I've learned and smile like the Buddha while waiting for my headache to disappear, and I can start training for marathons and triathlons to cut my body fat to zilch (plus or minus a few percent), there is no physical action I can take at this time, short of passing several thousand volts between my temples, that is going to have a serious enough impact on my brain chemistry.
Your mileage may vary.
Me? I was born with this Jones; it got kicked into high gear when I was 8 years old; and I'm still trying to find a way to set it right. Behaviorally AND chemically.
I've seen more than a dozen combinations of meds -- some here have seen more, some less. In my time, I've seen about six or eight different "me"s over the last 3 years.
So which one of them is the real me?
All of them?
None of them?
Perhaps the worst of them is who I really am. Maybe my genetic code is hard-wired to self-destruct for a reason, and maybe I should just follow my genetically-predetermined path and remove myself from the gene pool before doing the species any more harm than what its already caused itself, along with all the other genomes out there. There is no question about the lethality of our disorders ... so if I can't fix myself by trying harder to change, does that mean I really should off myself right now?
I had a Very Good Friend in junior high school who did his best to drag me out of the socially phobic, guilt-ridden, grief-deadened depressed black hole I was ... and the only way I could bear it was to play the fool. Making people laugh, whether with me or at me, made it begin to become bearable. And I created this facade of this witty, intelligent young man who resembled no one I really thought I was until, by my senior year in college, I thought I had lost myself completely. I didn't know who I was, even though who everyone thought I was seemed to be doing pretty damn good in school and with his friends and by any observable yardstick you might want to apply. I was one set of behaviors ANY mother would love to have as a son. But I couldn't go on living that lie, and I had absolutely no sense of who I was.
As much of a failure as I believed myself to be, thank God I was even worse at killing myself!
So who was the real me? The jokester? the geek? the tightly wound ball of pain? Yes, I was all of that.
And the eight or so "me"s I've seen in the last 3 years? I'm all of them as well.
I've been thinking, sulking, obsessing, you name it, about this issue for almost thirty years, and there's only one bit of wisdom I've ever been able to arrive at ... and, for all that, only for the last six months or so.
I cannot be anyone that I am not.
If only I had listened to Popeye, all those years ago. "I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam." And then some, as it turns out. My learned behaviors, instilled attitudes, self-delusions, and chemical enhancements or dehancements all have one thing in common: me.
Personally, I'll take any of the above that will help me ac-cen-tu-ate the positive and e-lim-in-ate the negative. Chemically enhanced? Behaviorally enhanced? Just as long as I'm enhanced ... I've been dehanced enough of my life already. It sucks.
"A tough guy, a helpless dancer.
A romantic, is it me for a moment?
A bloody lunatic, I'll even carry your bags.
A beggar, a hypocrite, love reign over me."
-- Pete Townsendcheers,
Bob
poster:bob
thread:28729
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000401/msgs/28915.html