Author: Alyxander James

Farewell, 20s

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Sunday will be my 30th birthday, and, antithetically to what seems to be the larger cultural narrative, I feel ready.

My 20s have been a decade of self-discovery. It’s been…a lot. I’ve come out many times with a variety of facets of identity. I graduated from college after very nearly dropping out, and found and kept my first real jobs. I’ve spent most of the last decade learning how to live independently and how to share my life and my space with someone else. I met my partner (with whom I continue to be smitten); we got through a long-distance phase of our relationship and then moved to Chicago together. I’ve gotten all of my current tattoos in my 20s. It’s been a decade of a lot of hard work, and of lessons learned, and I’m grateful.

But I’m also ready to move on. I don’t know what my 30s will hold, but I feel like now that I’ve gotten things a bit more sorted with how I relate to my body, it’s time to look at what I still want to learn, at what I want to do, at how I want to impact my world. It’s all quite terrifying and exciting all at once.

Age is definitely just a number (after all, I’m about to turn 30, but I’ve been an old man for years), but the start of a new decade does feel like a good chance at a fresh start. I look forward to seeing what 30 holds!

Progress

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Yesterday, I finally had my psychiatric appointment to discuss adjusting my meds in an effort to better manage my anxiety. And I’m pleased to say it went well! The psychiatric nurse practitioner and I talked about my past diagnoses and mental health history. Based on that, he gave me a couple of options that we could pursue, and respected my choice between those options.

Thankfully, the first step is simple: I’m just increasing the dose of one of my meds. If I feel in six weeks or so that that’s helping, then that’s where we leave it. If I’m still feeling like I need more help, we’ll look at adding an anti-anxiety medication to the mix. I’m hopeful that this first adjustment will be sufficient, and while I feel a little silly for taking so long to pursue this, I’m mostly just glad to have a plan. I’ve also finally come down from my most recent bout of hypo-mania, so I feel like I’m in a more stable spot to work out of, which is nice.

Here’s to (hopefully) better anxiety management!

Allergies and Optimism

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I think I’m finally coming down from my most recent swing into mania. The frenetic activity in my brain has slowed (it never really ceases), and my anxiety has dropped from One Step Below Panic Attack back to Background Hum, at least most of the time.

This week, it really feels like spring is here and summer is right around the corner. I know it’s still spring because even though it’s been quite warm, there is pollen everywhere, which is making my head feel fuzzy and my sinuses cranky. But it’s hard to be too mad when everything’s finally leafing and blooming and alive.

I’m still planning to meet with a psychiatrist next week about a potential med adjustment. I’m still nervous, but I’m also glad I’ve gotten to the point where I’m doing something about the anxiety instead of just drowning in it.

All in all, even though it’s been a weird week, I think things are looking up. The weather has me feeling optimistic. I’ve had lots of reminders that I’ve built a really solid support network, and I’m so grateful for all the awesome people in my life that make the good times better and the hard times livable.

Anxious All the Time

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My brain, at its best moments, could be described as “quirky.” Generally speaking, I know how to work with my mental quirks. I have systems in place to keep them from turning into anything more serious.

Possibly my least favorite of these quirks is the ever-present hum of anxiety in my head. I’ve frequently described mania as feeling like I have a head full of bees. They’re generally very busy, and sometimes something happens to make them particularly agitated, and they sting. That descriptor applies double for anxiety, really. Except instead of generally peaceful regular honey bees, anxiety bees are like killer bees, which will follow whatever upset them for an absurd distance compared with most other bees.

Metaphors aside, I’ve been really struggling to keep my anxiety under control lately. My usual coping mechanisms are falling short. Nothing seems to make much of a difference anymore.

This isn’t a new problem, exactly: I’ve noticed the frequency and severity of my anxiety increasing over the past couple of years. But I think we’ve finally hit critical mass for what I can reasonably manage on my own.

At the advice of my therapist, I got a referral to a psychiatrist from my doctor. I’ve been on the same doses of the same medications for about nine years; maybe it’s time for a change.

I was supposed to have an appointment today, but unfortunately, the doctor had to reschedule. Thankfully, I only have to wait a couple more weeks. I am nervous – messing around with meds can be a traumatizing process. But I’m hopeful that it’ll be worth it in the end.

Sleep Deprived

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It’s been a long week.

I am manic, and have been for a couple of weeks now. The first week or so was fun – I got excited about a lot of things and felt connected in ways I hadn’t in a while. The second week was not so fun. I was super anxious, and struggled to keep panic attacks at bay.

This week has also been less fun. The worst of the anxiety has waned, although it’s still buzzing beneath the surface. The bigger problem this week has been around sleep.

There have been a lot of late nights this week, for a variety of reasons. They’ve left me completely exhausted. However, when I’m finally able to lay down to sleep, my brain decides to kick it into high gear. It just. Won’t. Stop.

Rarely is it buzzing about anything of consequence. It just starts shouting about whatever random shit pops up as I’m attempting to drift off. I try to focus on breathing, but so far that hasn’t been especially successful. Even when I do sleep, I have really weird, vivid dreams that don’t leave me feeling rested; as soon as I wake up, my brain is back to running in circles.

As a result, it’s now Thursday and I feel like I’m just barely holding it together. I know this is a temporary state, and I’m talking with my therapist and doctor to see if there’s anything further I can be doing. But right now in the thick of it, I am not having a great time.

At least the weekend is almost here!

These Boots Were Made For Walking…

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It appears that spring has, at long last and after much struggle, arrived in Chicago. Trees and bushes are budding, daffodils are blooming, the sun is making more frequent appearances, and there’s even a new baby bunny in our courtyard.

Baby bun!

The somewhat warmer weather and increased presence of the sun have me wanting to be outside more. I started by going for walks around lunchtime at work. And then I decided to challenge myself a bit.

My office is a little over two miles from home, and because the nearest bus is half a mile away from either place, it takes me a good 45 minutes to get home by bus. I know from past experience that I can walk it in about an hour.

The pedometer on my watch lets me know that I rarely make the standard goal of 10,000 steps in a day. Although I am on my feet for much of the day with my standing desk, I don’t have reason to move around all that much.

So, in an effort to move more, I decided on Friday that I would walk home. And then I did the same thing on Monday, and again on Wednesday (Tuesday I stayed home from work and barely moved at all, but that’s another story). I’ve surpassed 10,000 steps by a fair margin five days this past week. And I feel pretty good about that. (Good is relative. I’ve been pretty sore, but generally am still functioning okay.)

So we’ll see how long this lasts. I know once it’s 90 degrees and humid I won’t want to be walking home anymore, but as long as the cooler, nicer weather holds, it’s a fun experiment seeing how many days in a week I can push myself to do that little bit (or, let’s be real, significant bit) of extra moving.

Existential Angst

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Yesterday I was in a meeting that began with introductions and an icebreaker question: what is the thing that has you the most distracted right now?

As we went around the room, there were a variety of answers: staff with elderly parents who were struggling, staff whose kids had some major life changes ahead of them, and the typical work-project-related distractions that you might expect. And then we came around to me. “I’m thinking a lot about where I want to be in five years, what I want to be doing with my life.” Everyone laughed (some a little nervously). We moved on.

But it’s true. I don’t know if this sense of existential angst around my career is a product of being about six weeks out from my 30th birthday, or if it’s because I’m nearing five years at my current job – the longest I’ve ever been in one place. (I’m also a bit on the manic side this week, which is an added facet of the angst but definitely not the cause.)

I started asking myself last week, as I was pondering these questions, “What if, instead of thinking about what I felt I ought to be doing based on external pressures, I gave some thought to what it is I want to do?”

In the past, when I’d asked that question, I was too afraid to answer (or was in a place where I was more focused on survival and conserving energy, and didn’t have the bandwidth to think of an answer). That’s shifting, though. As I continue to work to get the rest of my life sort of in order, as the non-career areas of my life stabilize, I have more and more bandwidth to consider that, while what I’m doing now is somewhat interesting and I’m pretty good at it, there are other options that might be more…fulfilling.

See, when I entered the workforce, all I wanted was a job that I could leave at work, that would pay the bills, and that would leave me time outside of work to do the creative things I love to do. I didn’t care if my job gave me any sense of purpose or meaning, because my creative pursuits did that. As I near 30, though, I’m starting to consider that perhaps it does matter to me that the thing that I’m doing 40 hours per week is meaningful and fulfilling in some way.

I have some ideas of what the future might look like. I’m putting together wish lists and five/three/one year plans. I’m not ready to put any of my thoughts on the internet quite yet, but I’m starting to talk with my partner, my therapist, and a handful of friends about the directions my brain is taking me. It’s overwhelming, but also incredibly exciting – it’s been a long while since I felt like I could plan further out than six months or a year for more than one thing at once.

And maybe I’m just high on the sunshine that finally came out today, but…the future looks bright. So here’s to bright futures and finding meaning in the mess of life. May we all work to get there together.

Vitamins

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I have been trying, with varying levels of success, to turn myself into a morning person.

I used to be a night owl. But as I’ve gotten older, I seem to have lost the ability (not to mention the will) to stay up late. Unfortunately, that has not meant a shift toward getting up earlier. I’ve felt for a while like I just sleep all the time. I like the idea of having quiet time to myself before I have to get ready for work in the morning, so sometime five months or so ago I started attempting to adjust my schedule.

It worked…for a while. And then it didn’t. I managed early mornings again in February while I was doing FAWM, but lost momentum toward the end of the month and haven’t really been able to get it back.

In talking with a friend a few months ago, we somehow ended up discussing the ubiquitousness of vitamin D deficiency, particularly in places where winter is a thing (and goddamn, has it been a thing in Chicago this year). I remembered a doctor in Minnesota telling me I was deficient years ago. I also remembered never doing anything about that.

But I had an appointment scheduled with my doctor to discuss some other questions I had and get other labs drawn, so I thought I’d bring it up there. I deal with chronic pain, and that often goes hand in hand with chronic fatigue (being in pain is exhausting), but this has been feeling…excessive, even allowing for that.

Long story short, I got my vitamin D levels tested, and the results came back this week. Turns out I am SUPER deficient. So now my doctor has put me on a highly concentrated dose of vitamin D that I’m taking weekly for a bit, after which point, I’ll be taking a normal, over-the-counter dose every day. I did the math, and it appears we’re basically carpet-bombing my system with the stuff for the next several weeks.

My hope is that, at some point in the near future, mornings will get easier. I hope I feel less like I’m constantly in need of a nap.

It might turn out that this doesn’t help those things. But at least it’s not going to make it worse. It’s worth a shot!

Grief at a Distance

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Last Friday was a hard day for my family: we had to say goodbye to our dog, Libby.

Libby, 04.26.02 - 03.30.18

Libby joined our family on June 26, 2002, when she was exactly two months old; I was 14, had just finished up my last year at the Lutheran elementary school I’d been attending since kindergarten, and was set to enter the big public high school in the fall. The first night she was with us, Libby was so sick and miserable – I remember waking up to her crying in the middle of the night and going downstairs to where her crate was set up, where, as I remember it, I sat and sang to her softly until she quieted down.

Thankfully, that first night didn’t define the rest of our time with Libby – she was a playful, curious, and sweet dog who was (thankfully) pretty consistently healthy.  She was my confidante – I told her the secrets I couldn’t voice to anyone else, and if those secrets came with tears, she would hop into my lap and lick them away. She was my cuddle buddy – she slept in my room for most of the time I was in high school, and managed to take up absurd amounts of space in my bed (she actually pushed me out of bed onto the floor one morning…she only weighed 20 lbs!). She was my nurse when I didn’t feel well – if I was curled up on the couch, she’d come and lay in the triangle of space between my knees and the back of the couch, and rest her head on my hip. I taught Libby almost all of the tricks she ever learned (although we never mastered leash manners). She taught me so much more.

Libby taught me patience. She taught me the value of play, and that just about anything can be a game if you want it to be. She taught me responsibility. And more than anything, Libby taught more about unconditional love than I will ever be able to express – both about giving it and receiving it.

A few years ago, I cut off contact with my family for a while. When that happened, I thought I was never going to see Libby again, and that broke my heart. When my family and I started talking again, and I did have the chance to see Libby, I wasn’t sure if she’d recognize me – it had been so long, and I looked so different, and she was so old and couldn’t hear me anymore (and would that have just confused her further, because I sounded so different?). She was a little hesitant at first, and honestly, there were a couple of visits where I was pretty convinced she just thought she’d made a new friend. Which was fine, really – I was just glad to be able to spend some more time with her as she got older and started visibly slowing down.

This past Christmas, we all knew she didn’t have much time left. The strength in her back legs was rapidly deteriorating, and she had a growing number of skin lesions on her body that oozed and itched, and necessitated her wearing a toddler-sized t-shirt (which was adorable, if the reason behind it was sad). I was absolutely certain this would be the last time I saw my dog, and I had no idea going in if she’d know who I was – she’d been acting a little off in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

When we walked through the door, she was happy to see us, but I couldn’t really tell if she knew who I was or not. Later that day, though, the smoke alarm went off – it was apparently one of the few frequencies Libby could still hear, and she was terrified. She was trembling. But she came right to me. She knew I was a safe place for her, and she let me hold her and tried to hide with me. Whether that was recognition or not, it meant the world. Saying goodbye that night was so hard, because I knew it was the last time I’d be able to do it.

She seemed to rally for a while. But a couple of weeks ago, my parents got home to find that Libby could barely get out of her bed – one of her legs didn’t want to unfold, and they realized they were running the risk of someday coming home to find she’d gotten herself trapped somewhere and was in distress. I know it was incredibly hard for my parents to make the decision to put her down, but it was time.

Had Libby made it another four weeks, she would have hit her 16th birthday. She was around for more than half of my life. It doesn’t feel entirely real to me yet that she’s gone, because I’m so far away. I’m doing my best to figure out how to grieve long-distance. I’m so grateful that I was able to see her at Christmas and say goodbye, and, as hard as it was, I’m grateful that I knew at the time that it would be the last time. I think it made this past week easier.

There will be other dogs, and I know I will love them fiercely. But there will never be another Libby.

Falling and Floating

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It has been, on the whole, a very decent week…with one or two large caveats.

Saturday, I had an afternoon volunteer shift at the Old Town School, where my partner and I were also going to catch a show that evening. When I got off the bus, it hadn’t pulled all the way to the curb, so I had to step onto the street. When I went to step onto the curb…I sort of missed. My toe caught on the edge, and I went sailing forward in what felt like slow motion – I kept thinking I could catch myself, and then there was the awful moment when I realized I couldn’t, and I crashed, hard. I landed on my bad knee, ripped a hole in the palm of the fingerless glove on my right hand, and hit my head. The travel mug I had been carrying and the water bottle that had been in a pouch on the side of my backpack both went flying.

I was pretty shaken up, and my knee hurt like hell, but I managed to get up and hobble to the school, where I texted my partner (who was at the March for Our Lives), and then, like the millennial I am, posted about it on Instagram.

It was horrible, but before too long, the day started turning around. I got some ice from the cafe for my knee, and no sooner had I gotten downstairs with that than a friend showed up with a gluten free cupcake for me. My partner came and met me for dinner between my shift and the concert, and that was lovely; the concert was also a lot of fun.

Monday I had my first gig in a couple of months, and I was able to try out some of the material I wrote during FAWM. I managed to actually look at the audience more than my lead sheets for the first time ever, so that was a big win.

The rest of the week has been fine, and I’m going to the doctor today to get my knee checked out. (Also, if you’re thinking, “didn’t he just fall a month ago?” You are not wrong. Gravity and I are not getting along these days, apparently.) The fall was a bit of a nightmare, but it could have been so much worse – I could’ve cracked my head open, I could’ve broken something else…I landed a few inches from an iron fence. And I have good people that have been checking in on me and taking care of me. It was an unfortunate situation, but a good reminder that my people are the best people.

Here’s hoping I can stay upright for a while!