November 26, 2023
Good day to YOU, faithful reader! The topics of this month’s blog entries are going to center around my anxieties and fears. This will hopefully allow me to visualize and externalize my weaknesses and how to deal with them.
This month I am going to talk about me. I struggle. I need help. I am alone most of the day, except for my dogs, and it is difficult. I hesitate to say “depressing”, because I don’t really think that I am officially, clinically depressed. I used to have work friends that I looked up to and could talk to about life’s speed bumps. After my dad passed away, I don’t have any male figures that are older than me to talk to. When I say “older”, I just mean 20years or more older. I have some scout friends and I have talked to them, but it isn’t the same.
I am afraid. I’m afraid of what is going to happen to me as I get older. I have no idea what my bloodline has laid out for me since I am adopted. I say it so much it is feeling like a crutch or dodge. But it is true. I only know that my birth-mother’s father, so maternal grandfather, had several heart attacks. He may have died from one. I don’t know! So, as I age and I start to feel a twinge in my chest, that is where my mind goes. I have been to my primary care physician, and he has assured me that I have not had any heart attacks or have any heart issues to worry about. I do have high blood pressure, and high cholesterol, but don’t we all?
I am scared. I am scared of what I cannot control. Not in a bad sense, more like in my previous posts about my kids and my dogs, and my wife. It is what ails them on the inside that I can’t fix. I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on T.V. Okay, bad joke. But when my family comes to me and says that they have a pain or ache or are sick, my stomach drops and my heart begins to beat faster. I try to take a deep breath and push out the intrusive thoughts of impending doom and start small. Maybe, after all, it is something that a cold pack, warm compress or some ibuprofen will fix. But it is that initial shock of learning about the injury or illness that pushes me to the edge of the precipice and there I stand, staring out into the void wondering if this is the end.
I worry too much. I worry about my kids, my dogs, and my wife long before I worry about myself. That is it too. I put them before myself. I have always thought of myself as a provider, and primary carer and wanting to help others before myself. But it seems that it has become a detriment to my mental and physical health.
I have started reaching out for help. I have started talking to my wife about all of this. Somedays she is willing to sit and listen and comfort me. Other days she rolls her eyes and sighs, as if to say, “Here we go again.” I know that I can get myself into a vicious circle of worry which impacts my physical health, which then makes me worry more. For those days, I do have some medication. I haven’t taken them yet. I am scared too.
I am reconnecting with God. I have always read my daily bible email, which contains a sentence or two of scripture, but during this time of year there are little white books that have lessons for Advent. I am reading those everyday and following a plan to read a chapter and verse from the bible. I have even decided to read through my prayers again. I have not really had a bad relationship with God, but I feel more connected to the universe when I am outside, in the woods, listening to the wind blow through the leaves, and the creatures run about and live. That energizes me WAY more than sitting in a stuffed church on hard pews listening to some old fart tell me what the bible means. I have always hated that. But let’s not go down that road. Maybe another time. When I do pray, I pray to God and my father. Some people would try and correct me to God, THE father. But I would just smile and nod while thinking of my own dad, up in heaven, looking down and hearing his voice telling to “Knock it off, and cool down. It’ll be better, you’ll see.”
TTFN