Stuff

One of the psychologists at my clinic, the one who ran the support group I used to attend, gave me a take-home evaluated/scoring form for attention deficit disorder, mostly out of curiosity on his part. He talked to me briefly about some kind of idea of using some kind of "primal therapy", at least I think that's what he called it... kind of think of me sitting in a room with the psychologist, and he pushes all my buttons until he can get me into an emotional breakdown where I release a lot of the pent-up emotions... just learn to let go of these emotions and get them out, and then after that start applying the cognitive strategies I've already learned to put the let-out emotions back into balance. In other words, he thinks we might be doing things backwards, that is, some of my otherwise healthy "coping strategies" may be making things worse for me, and will continue to do so until we can get to the root causes of my problems.

I also talked some more at length both with him and my regular therapist about the possibility of Parkinson's disease being a possibility for me. We skimmed through the typical symptoms, such as listed in the DSM-IV, and from that it sounds like it could be a possibility. Problem one is that Parkinson's is very hard to officially diagnose even with brain scans. It's also possible that the meds I've been taken cause some of these symptoms, although as I look back, I can say that most of these symptoms pre-date the taking of medication.

Once my state-run HMO insurance plan gets all settled, I'll start taking some more "check the box" type tests, written tests, that the psychologist can use to get yet another perspective into my problems.

My therapist, psychologist, and even my psychiatrist, are beginning to think that all of the cognitive-behavioral therapy and "talk" therapy won't be able to help me... or more accurately, it won't be able to get me closer to a cure. The idea is that there is something else deeper that needs to be resolved first, whether it's a neurological problem, or releasing decades of pent-up emotions, or both, we're not sure yet and that is why I'll start taking both written tests and brain scans and such.

All of these cognitive-behavioral techniques and talk therapy and things like self-esteem boosting and compassionate self-dialog and many other things are "good things" and really help a lot of people with anxiety disorders, I have seen many sufferers of anxiety related disorders improve dramatically with this type of help, so I don't want to discourage anyone from giving them a shot.

In the short term, I will continue to see my regular therapist every two weeks, and also attend a small group session mediated by him once a month.

Tomorrow is my first session with this new group, and I'll turn in this ADD test then.

I have a feeling this is going to continue to be a very, very long ride, it seems from my point of view that there is not one or even just a few prominent causes, but a complex mishmash of problems, each by itself only slightly abnormal, that together as a whole have put me where I'm at. Trying to fish out each of these little things and finding a way to fix them without "upsetting the cart" will take a long time, but I'll stick it out as long as I can.

I made the call to cash out the measly sum I had in my retirement account to further help me in the short term with medical costs, especially since many of my family members are in a financial or medical crisis.

Other than all that, daily life is still the same struggle I have been going through for some time now... simple tasks like doing the dishes or running short errands are very difficult, I often tremble and break dishes and things like that, my mind wanders a lot, sleep is still troublesome for me, and I spend most of my days lethargic and groggy, avoiding most things but also trying to push myself a little bit to keep me from becoming too sedentary... I am and have been very sedentary for a long time.