Mental Health

Well there's been a definite theme running around the blogosphere today.

From Tank: "My demon is an abundance of free time spent in solitude. My curse is laziness. And my nemesis is sure to be assorted self-destructive behaviors. I've got to foil this monster before it gets any more noxious."

I do have a lot of free time. Especially since I've pretty much given up on dating for awhile. And then add to it my need to regenerate and hibernate that causes problems.

From Jimbo: "I really like my private time to regenerate, and contrary to some may perceive I'm actually an introvert, if you go by the technical description of the personality type. I'm incredibly social when I'm well-rested and have had my private time to myself, but if I'm worn out from work or a tight schedule, I'm admittedly the last person you'll want to be around."

Again, that's me (well, mabye not incredibly social). But I wonder if I take it to an unhealthy extreme? Is my need to hibernate, to shut down, to shut out the world, just an attempt to not address some of my underlying mental/emotional problems. Eating till you're sleepy, and then sleeping until you're hungry is a form of denial, or self-medication. But isn't exactly good for my waistline, which puts me back into the downward spiral of depression.

I wandered around my little condo last night. Almost pacing. I didn't want to surf the web, I didn't want to order in, I didn't want to watch TV. I didn't want to do anything. And I knew it was too early to go to sleep. It was just odd.

GCinDC talks about therapy and even if I could (I can't because of that pesky clearance), I keeping thinking: "Is the last thing I need more time in my head?"

Anyways, I need to figure out something to do that keeps me busy, doesn't drain me, and doesn't involve food or alcohol. So after the gym tonight, I may just go for a long walk. I don't know. Something different.

FRAGILE! Handle With Care

So I like to think that I've got a thick skin, that I'm resilient, and in some instances that's true. And in some instances I'm as fragile as an egg shell and just saying the wrong thing to me can send me into a pretty bad death spiral.

One of my bad triggers is constructive criticism. Hmm, and maybe that's not it exactly. Maybe it's the re-inforced criticism, after I've already agreed to change what I'm doing, the rubbing it in my nose that annoys me. I'm my own worst enemy in overreacting and blaming myself for stuff. I'm really hard on myself and I don't need the constructive criticism repeated.

So I'm in a meeting today. A telecon, but there was one other guy not from my company there in the room with us. And while it was an important meeting, I'm also going to be out of the office for the next 2.5 days and I've got stuff I need to do. So I was trying to multi-task and I dropped synch from the conversation. The second time I got asked a question and had to ask to have the question repeated, my former boss snapped that we shouldn't be doing work during the telecon. I wasn't the only one. But I stopped. I focused on the meeting at hand excluding everything else. And it went okay.

After the meeting, after most people had left, my former boss reiterated his comment about how we shouldn't do be working during a telecon. And this is where the problem is. I agree with him. Don't get me wrong. But I stopped. And I won't do that again. But I don't need to be told twice, nor in front of other people including one my own guys. It made me feel like a second grader getting busted for shooting spit balls or something.

Which then got me pissed. This meeting is pretty much a direct result of some work that I've been doing. If we get this work, it won't come to my group, and that's okay. But I don't want to be treated like a second grader. And the more I thought about it, the more I got mad. And I know this is blowing this completely out of proportion, but that's the way it was. After he left, I went down to my office and I pretty much didn't do anything. I had just shut down. Thankfully it was almost five and then I went to the gym.

The good news is sometimes that type of incident also involved me either coming home and napping and/or eating something not healthy. But atleast I went to the gym.

Okay, some random bits:

- Have you heard this radio commercial about some local news expose about aging meat in butcher shops? I'm sure it's a real problem, but the way the commercial end just kills me: "Is your meat past it's prime." Hello! That's a line from a porn movie if I've ever heard one.

- Lou frakin Dobbs! The subject of race relations and politics is the subject and he's going to interview the new Governor of Massachusetts who's only the second African American governor since Emancipation. WTF? Like there were so many African American governor's before Emancipation? That's like saying, Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House since Suffrage. I can't figure out why they say it that way unless the "Second African American Governor ever" sounds so much worse. It does. But that's also the reality. But adding non sequitor qualifers in describing these people is just a sham. But then, we are talking Lou Dobbs.