I'm Not Okay, and That's Okay

 I'm not okay.

Sometimes we have to admit that to ourselves. Not to others, for attention or sympathy--but to yourself. Pretending you're okay is not okay. Being not okay is okay, which doesn't mean you should want to stay that way.

On April Fourth my teenage nephew killed himself. My post about it is here:

https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2023/04/rest-in-peace-christian.html

There, now I don't have to go through writing that again. (Meanwhile, about a week later an apartment complex in a neighboring town was shot up by a man who used to be married to my ex-wife. I never particularly cared for him, but my daughters are good friends of his kids, and they're wonderful people. This helped no one's stress level.)

Christian's. A 16 year old with a lot going for him.

I didn't see Christian as often as I would have liked, which is no one's fault but my own. Still, it hit me just as hard as my brother's death two years ago. Has it been two years? I'm not okay over that, either.

The reason I'm writing this is because my next blog--unless something else happens--will likely be another humor attempt to cheer up everyone's lives a little, as I'm wont to do. Yes, I did use that word correctly, look it up. I do this because so many of us are going through difficult times, and so many of us could use the cheering up. Making people laugh, or at least smile, lightens my own day. Since I suffer from depression and anxiety myself, what helps others helps me.

But that doesn't mean I'm all right.

Remember Robin Williams? Funniest guy alive, everything to live for. Killed himself.

Please try to remember that even if someone seems fine--even if they insist they're fine--you don't know what's going on underneath. You don't know what the person next to you is going through. Maybe they don't know. My wife always figures out I'm having a bad day before I do.

So support mental health awareness, fight the stigma, and ... laugh a lot. Keep your spirits up. Get help if needed. The world may seem a hard and depressing place, but it does you no good to dwell on it. Worst case scenario, I'll be there to make you smile, or at least try to. 

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Stressing Out Over PTSD

 One stressful thing about being a dispatcher is that when the phone rings it could be anything. Many of us play Dispatch Bingo. A UFO report? A herd of cattle blocking the roadway? Lunch, interrupted? A couple arguing over who gets custody of their dog? That's a row--bingo!

For some dispatchers this is one of the perks of the job: the challenge and variety. For others, not so much.

Years ago the business line rang and, in a calm voice, a man gave me his name and home address, so we could notify his family. Then he gave me the location where we could find his body. Then he hung up.

Often, when a suicidal person reaches out, it's a cry for help. Not this time. When our units arrived they could only confirm my certainty: Immediately after hanging up the phone, he shot himself. I was the last person he ever spoke to.

It messed me up.

Word got around, and my boss called to check on me. I told him I would be okay, which was true in the long run. I don't know if I told him that in the short run I wasn't okay at all, but my wife was with me, and I hung in there.

I've served in three branches of the emergency services: EMS, Fire, and 911 Dispatch. If anyone mentions PTSD or critical incident stress, I immediately flash back to one particular call in each of those three areas. But a lot of time has passed since those incidents, and although they still dwell in the dark corners of my brain, they don't control my life.

Usually.

Earlier this year we received a report of a person threatening to kill themself with a gun. I didn't take that call, but the moment I heard the details my body chilled, I could barely breath, and my mind went numb. That suicide from so long ago crashed out of the cage I'd trapped it in and rampaged through my head.

It turns out the person in this case did not have a gun, and the whole thing ended peacefully. Still, it was a wake up call. A jangling alarm that took about five years off my life ... and after three decades at this job, I've already lost enough. It's one of the reasons why I've been pushing my writing career: Not only because I have a lot of stories to tell, but because I'd like to spend my time writing them instead of screaming into a pillow after work every morning.

(This is one time in this blog when I exaggerate: No, I don't scream into a pillow after work. I kiss my wife, hug the dog, and hit the bed, where I usually get a good eight hours of sleep in between the weird dreams.)

I'm not writing this to get sympathy for me. I just wanted to remind everyone that the person you think is strong and "normal" may be battling monsters inside. In fact, they may be the most cheerful people you know, always with a smile and a joke. But the effects of stress are real, and the challenge of maintaining our mental health is a stigma that still remains, even today.

Look after yourself. Look after your friends. And if someone says they're having a problem with their emotions or their mental state, take them seriously. Sometimes we make it look way easier than it is.

Now, I'm off to write some humor ... we all have our ways to cope.

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

What's Christmas All About?

 So far as I can remember this was last published fourteen years ago, so it's a safe assumption most of my readers don't remember it or have never read it. Now that I think about it, why don't I just shut up and let people think I just wrote it? never mind.

 

I’ve always related to the cartoon character Charlie Brown.

I was the odd shaped kid, naïve, a little strange, unpopular. If I’d dared to manage a baseball team, it would have been the worst team on the planet. The little red haired girl was very nice, but clearly had no interest in me. I even had a white dog, although he slept inside the dog house. 

So it’s not surprising that, like Charlie Brown, I can be a little cynical about Christmas. In today’s society, what’s Christmas all about?

Not long ago, a newspaper gave a “hiss” to people who put huge inflatable Christmas figures in their front yards. I understand (said the guy who had a huge inflatable Santa in his front yard until it died of old age). But can’t you overdo it just as much with more traditional Christmas decorations? If you fire up so many lights around the outside of your house that it sets off NORAD’s missile launch alarm, isn’t that just a bit gaudy? Is it entirely within the realm of good taste to replace the livestock in your nativity scene with reindeer and snowmen?

I love Christmas lights, but we can go way overboard, and start thinking Christmas is all about keeping up with the decorating Jones’s. When your decorations drain the North American power grid; when your electric meter flies off the side of the house and decapitates the courthouse clock tower; when Jennifer Lawrence shows up in a limo, thinking your home is the spotlit premier of her new movie; it’s time to think about cutting back.

The holidays have become make or break time for almost all of America’s retail establishments. If they don’t do well at Christmastime, you can forget the rest of the year. Is this the economic model we want to follow? Is this what Christmas is all about?

When the National Guard tries to break up a riot over the new X-Box, but is driven off by a rabid crowd; when the first Christmas displays of the year melt in the August heat; when the after-Thanksgiving sales begin at 4 a.m. the Friday before Thanksgiving; it’s time to rethink our priorities.

Meanwhile, we've become totally disconnected from what Christmas is supposed to be about. Naysayers will tell you many Christmas traditions have nothing to do with Christ, and they're right: The trappings aren't the point at all. It's about faith, something that can be appreciated just as well by non-Christians. But when your definition of faith means you’re confident you’ll get the new “Blood Splatter 3” game in your stocking, you could be in a very lonely place, indeed--maybe even if you don't realize it.

But so many people are in that place. Thinking about who has the better stuff, worried about nothing more than today, believing in nothing. Today’s cynicism eats into my feeble attempts at optimism, this cold, gray time of year. I wonder what it’s all about. Can anyone tell me what Christmas is really all about?

Of course, the little boy Linus walks up with his blanket, as he has in that Charlie Brown special for fifty-five years. Kids are honest; that’s both their blessing and their curse. They may not have the maturity or education of adults, but they also don’t have all that baggage that keeps some things from being black and white.

“Sure, Mark,” he says. “I can tell you what Christmas is all about:”

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born in the City of Bethlehem, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men.”

“That’s what Christmas is all about, Mark.”

Oh. Well, that makes a lot more sense than lights, toys, and shopping.

And then Linus goes off, to abide for another year in the hopes that, this time, we’ll take that Christmas spirit with us all year long.

Me? Like Charlie Brown, I may kill my little tree, or screw up directing the play. But, no matter what bad thing happens, I can’t help having an innate sense of optimism. When I hear a baby laugh, or smell a flower, or see a sunset, I can't imagine they weren't created by something greater than ourselves. But this world can be a better place if the good people of every religion, and who lack one, refuse to give up. We can still have peace and good will toward men, someday. We just have to keep the faith ... and the love, with is in many ways the same thing.

That’s what Christmas is all about.

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

 

Depression Can Be Depressing

 Hi, who wants to talk about something serious?

Fine, you people move on--but just so you know, the rest of us will be having chocolate.

I don't often get serious here, because the world's serious enough--and there are plenty of others out there talking seriously in my stead. I like to get serious with humor, which may offend some people ... but that's okay, because I don't want to hang around people who don't appreciate the principle of "lighten up". Besides, when I extract humor from a situation, it usually cheers up at least me, and sometimes others with me.

Usually.

Now, I've never hidden the fact that during winter I take a little "happy pill" (that's not what the doctor calls it) to get through my Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD is what normal people get when the days get short and the nights get cold. Abnormal people have a mental condition that allows them to be okay with winter, something experts are still puzzling out.

I wean myself off my happy pill, otherwise known as Sertraline, around early spring, as I did this spring. It has some un-fun side effects, while for some reason I never get the one good side effect: loss of appetite.

You'll remember that this year, 2021, is the year everyone going through 2020 was hoping and praying for.

Well, the joke's on you.

So far this year my brother died--and really, I can just stop right there, can't I? My wife says I still haven't dealt with it, and I'd appreciate if none of you told her she's absolutely right.

 The rest is all minor irritation. Still, minor irritations, such as getting sick after over a year of avoiding it, and having that sickness move into a massive sinus infection that I just started my third course of antibiotics to fight, can add up.

Where were we? Oh, yeah. Well, as of this writing Spring never showed up for more than a day. Emily fixed the usual leaky plumbing problems and replaced burned-out kitchen appliances, times two--each. One of Emily's favorite horses at her work had to be put down, and she had to be there for it. My job has been interesting, and not in a good way. And my occasional chronic back pain seems to have become un-occasional, to such an extent that the pain kept me from making any calls with my volunteer fire department this year. My book sales, like those of most authors, have tanked.

And my brother died. With the weather allegedly soon to be better and the pandemic slightly better (oh, and add pandemic to the list), a memorial gathering for my brother Jeff is coming up. Here's the info on that, for those who knew him:

https://www.facebook.com/events/303626244615814

Because info is good, and so is remembering. However, I never considered that three months after he died, just talking about a get-together would stir it all up again.

So ... depression and anxiety became a thing.

I finally accepted it after I put aside my writing business efforts, to start work on a new novel. Promotion, selling, and submitting are all part of being a working writer. But when I'm down, the only thing that really perks me up is the writing, itself.

But it didn't work this time. And I'm 20,000 words in.

So, as of yesterday, I went back on the happy pill. I also started using a multi-spectrum light again, because Mother Nature isn't cooperating, and I'm otherwise dealing as best I can. (No, I'm not suicidal. Homicidal? Well, I did feel an urge recently to run down a woman walking in the middle of the street when there was a sidewalk RIGHT THERE ... but I saw she was walking a dog, and I can't hurt a dog.)

Dogs--the best depression medicine.

 

Now, other than to apologize for being so antisocial and overall grouchy this year, writing this all down is mostly a public service announcement:

People get depressed. It's a real thing. It's usually not their fault, and there's help available to work through it. It's nothing to be ashamed of, and it's nothing to shun people over. I had high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and I fought that with meds and lifestyle changes. I have chronic back pain, and I treat it with cold, heat, and a wonderful but sadistic chiropractor. I have depression, and I treat it with medication, light therapy, the dog, comedy shows, writing, sleep, and chocolate.

That's what I call a well-rounded treatment regimen.

So to sum it all up: If you have a problem, get help. If you have a friend or family member who seems fine, remember: Some of the funniest and seemingly most lighthearted people might be struggling with darkness underneath.

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"