Mental Health Support

Sometimes simply muddling through is often the best of all alternatives.

My doctor left a message and wants me to call him tomorrow. So maybe this part of the safety net I've built for myself is working. At least I hope so. I don't think I owe my doctor any money at the moment. It's November and my wife and I just exceeded our health insurance deductible this year, as usual. The only thing we have to put up with for the next two months is our insurance company acting like they are doing us a huge favor maybe paying back a paltry 1/6 of what we've paid this year in premiums.

Three, maybe four, of my grandparents were alcoholics. The "maybe four" didn't drink for fear, having experienced too many Hollywood parties as a young person. One quit drinking because it interfered with his math skills and his mother-in-law said she'd shoot him if he drank anymore. (My great grandmothers were Wild West. This was no idle threat.) My crazy grandma drank, but that's not what killed her, it was the smoking. Nicotine was her primary self-medication. She'd have been crazy with or without alcohol or nicotine. I sometimes wonder if modern medicine might have helped her, but in her time mental illness was something to hide. Heck, it was something to hide when I was in college too. Nothing was written down, you just had a confidential talk with the college dean who recommended you take some time off... I was "asked" to leave school twice. The implied threat was permanent expulsion.

If you think some kind of alcoholics group will help, Locut0s, go for it. As a group I think alcoholics who've recognized they have a problem tend to be nicer people than the average sort.

When I'm in a bad place it's always the OCD and becoming-an-invisible-person that brings me down.

Current Free Cell games on this latest computer build: 7991
Current Wins: 7964

And I know every hair on my face 'cause I pull out those that are not quite right, especially when I'm feeling stressed.

Fortunately I have a couple of obsessions and compulsions that are a little bit more useful, and whenever I don't, our pack of dogs gets me out walking even when I'd rather be writing useless code or finding meaningless patterns in the ceiling plaster.