Sunday, May 4, 2014
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Escape Velocity and the End of the Innocence
I am irritable when I arrive home. I am impatient and intolerant. Things are not put away. I go to the butter plate and find it empty. This is the tipping point for me and I become furious. Why didn't you refill the plate? Am I the one who always has to do this? Isn't this important to you? I pack an overnight bag and storm out of the house. I don't want the children to see us fighting.
I knew this was coming a month before. I had opened another checking account in my name. I had changed my Direct Deposit. I start taking strategic items out of the house. I take the filing box with the billing receipts. I take the tax records. With them I have financial control.
I return home but my heart isn't in it. We try to be intimate.
I feel exhausted from my marriage. I am Cinderella no more. I tried so hard. I can't carry this marriage. I couldn't work it out. It isn't what I thought it is. I pack my things.
I begin living at work, sleeping on my couch and showering in the locker room in the morning. I haunt the facility at night. In the sky I can see a spotlight for "XBOX 360". It is November 22, 2005. I spend Thanksgiving in my office. I cannot attend our mutual friend's invitation for dinner.
* * *
It is 1999. I am working as a software engineer. I am naïve and fanatical about my product. I value making it right above all. I think I am important. I make a software correction just like many others. I don't know that it will cost my company millions of dollars. I am rushing through my work. I am not putting in the time and effort to do a thorough job.
Working on this software correction, I can't explain the problem of why an item is missing from the database. The loss occurs over and over. Rather than make the effort to fully understand the loss of the item, I tell the computer to have a new policy to recreate item when it is found missing. When this happens, the item is then shared with other computers on the network; these computers previously had thought that copy of the item is deleted. However, due to the recreated item being sent to them, the other computers restore the item to their databases. I did not know that my change causes the records of old employees to come back to life to their employers, causing our customers great confusion.
I feel responsible. I feel ashamed.
* * *
It is 2004. The company is in litigation with regulatory authorities over licensing and patents for my software product. I am righteously indigent and protective that the product could be threatened and its intellectual property set at naught. I volunteer to work with the legal department, much at the detriment of my career, to evaluate licensing models. I later volunteer as an expert witness and write an exhibit essay on the team's sacrifice and the merits of our invention. The prosecution says our production is of no intrinsic value.
Our defensive is not effective and we are fined. I see that all our efforts are fruitless and a waste of time. The deck is stacked against us. They didn't give us a fair hearing and they weren't going to let us win. I tried so hard. I take the verdict personally. This was our child, brought to market through blood, sweat and tears.
What is worse is that I see the writing on the wall: our product production will be restricted and the days of aggressive development are over.
I take the loss personally. I am defeated.
* * *
In October 2005 I walked away from my church after eighteen years. Looking back, I can see that the reason I joined this church and served extremely diligently was compulsion toward fearful obedience. I literally felt that my marriage and service in the church was a matter of life or death. As in other facets of my life, I was a fanatic and passionate to succeed through shear effort of will.
By now, my mental façade was crumbling. My image of myself as savior of my marriage, my work and my church was self-delusion. My life had been carrying these institutions, killing myself in the process. I was realizing that the battle times were over and that the objects of my obsession had grown up to their limits in the current frame.
In October of that year, I was serving as a pastoral assistant. I had been chosen by the pastor personally and it was token of high spirituality. I was to give a sermon honoring the church and personal worship. No one expected that I would indirectly denounce the church for coercion and manipulation of the truth.
My words were taken from Isaiah 1:10-15.
The church practices and mode of worship were false. The church was an abomination, an iniquity, a thing hated, disrespected and ignored. The church had become a imperfection that was changing its way.
When I was done speaking, I don't think the pastoral leadership knew what I had done. There is only one person in the congregation who was heard to say "I don't think that's church doctrine". After the meeting was over, I went to the pastor and resigned. He had not long called me to the position. I threw away my leadership position and all that I had worked for.
* * *
I have been compelled to do everything in my life. I felt trapped in my choices, and being caught, worked as hard as I can to save myself by serving everyone around me.
My favorite part of marriage has been the rearing of my children.
When people ask the reason for my divorce, I say:
My children grew up.
I knew this was coming a month before. I had opened another checking account in my name. I had changed my Direct Deposit. I start taking strategic items out of the house. I take the filing box with the billing receipts. I take the tax records. With them I have financial control.
I return home but my heart isn't in it. We try to be intimate.
I feel exhausted from my marriage. I am Cinderella no more. I tried so hard. I can't carry this marriage. I couldn't work it out. It isn't what I thought it is. I pack my things.
I begin living at work, sleeping on my couch and showering in the locker room in the morning. I haunt the facility at night. In the sky I can see a spotlight for "XBOX 360". It is November 22, 2005. I spend Thanksgiving in my office. I cannot attend our mutual friend's invitation for dinner.
* * *
It is 1999. I am working as a software engineer. I am naïve and fanatical about my product. I value making it right above all. I think I am important. I make a software correction just like many others. I don't know that it will cost my company millions of dollars. I am rushing through my work. I am not putting in the time and effort to do a thorough job.
Working on this software correction, I can't explain the problem of why an item is missing from the database. The loss occurs over and over. Rather than make the effort to fully understand the loss of the item, I tell the computer to have a new policy to recreate item when it is found missing. When this happens, the item is then shared with other computers on the network; these computers previously had thought that copy of the item is deleted. However, due to the recreated item being sent to them, the other computers restore the item to their databases. I did not know that my change causes the records of old employees to come back to life to their employers, causing our customers great confusion.
I feel responsible. I feel ashamed.
* * *
It is 2004. The company is in litigation with regulatory authorities over licensing and patents for my software product. I am righteously indigent and protective that the product could be threatened and its intellectual property set at naught. I volunteer to work with the legal department, much at the detriment of my career, to evaluate licensing models. I later volunteer as an expert witness and write an exhibit essay on the team's sacrifice and the merits of our invention. The prosecution says our production is of no intrinsic value.
Our defensive is not effective and we are fined. I see that all our efforts are fruitless and a waste of time. The deck is stacked against us. They didn't give us a fair hearing and they weren't going to let us win. I tried so hard. I take the verdict personally. This was our child, brought to market through blood, sweat and tears.
What is worse is that I see the writing on the wall: our product production will be restricted and the days of aggressive development are over.
I take the loss personally. I am defeated.
* * *
In October 2005 I walked away from my church after eighteen years. Looking back, I can see that the reason I joined this church and served extremely diligently was compulsion toward fearful obedience. I literally felt that my marriage and service in the church was a matter of life or death. As in other facets of my life, I was a fanatic and passionate to succeed through shear effort of will.
By now, my mental façade was crumbling. My image of myself as savior of my marriage, my work and my church was self-delusion. My life had been carrying these institutions, killing myself in the process. I was realizing that the battle times were over and that the objects of my obsession had grown up to their limits in the current frame.
In October of that year, I was serving as a pastoral assistant. I had been chosen by the pastor personally and it was token of high spirituality. I was to give a sermon honoring the church and personal worship. No one expected that I would indirectly denounce the church for coercion and manipulation of the truth.
My words were taken from Isaiah 1:10-15.
The church practices and mode of worship were false. The church was an abomination, an iniquity, a thing hated, disrespected and ignored. The church had become a imperfection that was changing its way.
When I was done speaking, I don't think the pastoral leadership knew what I had done. There is only one person in the congregation who was heard to say "I don't think that's church doctrine". After the meeting was over, I went to the pastor and resigned. He had not long called me to the position. I threw away my leadership position and all that I had worked for.
* * *
I have been compelled to do everything in my life. I felt trapped in my choices, and being caught, worked as hard as I can to save myself by serving everyone around me.
My favorite part of marriage has been the rearing of my children.
When people ask the reason for my divorce, I say:
My children grew up.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
PDP-8 and the Halls of ZK
The first time I used a real computer was in the eighth grade in 1976. The computer was a DEC PDP-8/M.
(This picture is a PDP-8/E was taken at the Living Computer Museum in Seattle WA in 2013.)
You can read more about the PDP-8 here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-8
Our computer used the old telephone-system teletype machines which were like the Volkswagen's of input-output consoles. They were very clunky and noisy. We had one video terminal which could display 12 lines x 80 characters. It was like Christmas one day when we learned how to clear the screen from within a program as well as address any position on the screen. I adapted a star trek game to display the game board continuously on the screen.
This early computer used wrapped wires on its mother board, and also used real magnets in its core memory. One amazing thing it could do is start up again without reading a disk. Not like today where the memory forgets everything when you turn it off. With this computer, after you turned it off, you simply turned it on again, toggled the starting address and it remembered where it was.
This computer had one of the most amazing tricks I have ever seen. A visitor or technician came to visit one day. He set up a radio next to the computer and inserted a disk. He showed us a list of files. We choose "ode to joy". When he ran the file, we heard interference coming from the radio that sounded like music. He had Christmas carols on the disk as well. But the computer was not an intentional transmitter. Someone had figured out that when the computer does operation X, it generates through interference this note. And operation Y, likewise another note. Someone had hacked the computer to do something it was never supposed to do. It was so clever. I think the FCC would have something to say about this!
When I was 15, the summer my father died, I taught BASIC programming to children at our local science center. I spent all my free time at the science center because I could get computer time in exchange for helping to operate it. The computer was a DEC PDP-11/34 with RT-11 and Multi-User Basic, which was a more sophisticated and powerful system than the PDP-8.
One aspect of the software which fascinated me was that you could change the supervisory layer of the system. We could write games, but we could also change what happened before the games happened. Not only could we change the logon screen, but we could change how the logon screen worked. We could change the tool programs that others could use. For me, there was something magical about being able to change not only the games, but the underlying system itself. It was like being able to change the laws of physics or the properties of the land we walk on.
I also remember what we did at night. We would take the system down to a single user, and run larger games under the core operating system itself. My favorite was game called ADVENT, which was originally developed by Crowther and Woods. It was a textual interactive fiction game which features puzzle-solving and treasure hunting.
You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure
Those times came to an end as I moved away to live with my Aunt. The work I did at the science center was featured in The New Hampshire View.
The summer after my father died, when I was 16 years old, I was accepted as an intern at Digital Equipment Corporation.
My starting salary was $215/week. In 1981 dollars. The salary was modest, but I would have paid them to work there.
I was there during the birth of Digital's most successful hardware/software system: the VAX-11 and VMS. The engineers behind this engineering marvel are to be found in the highest echelons of computing companies today. I did nothing of this myself. I was just lucky to be there.
There was a typing speed test program. It presented a list of words in multiple columns, and you had to enter the words as quickly as you could in the time allotted. It calculated your words per minute and kept a high-score list. The secretaries used to compete with one another for who could get the fastest time. One time, another intern and I conspired to fool the typing test. We used a capability called a "pseudo-terminal" to simulate a user to the typing test. Through the pseudo-terminal we sent the words electronically, giving us an inhumanly high score. Needless to say, the secretaries were highly impressed with us.
Another time, there was a gentlemen working in our group who was a little eccentric. He seemed quite paranoid and furtive. He carried a briefcase and the only thing in it was a stick of deodorant.
Now, in those days, we used a type of terminal called a VT-100. There was a bug in the firmware of the terminal where it would get into "infinite key mode", endlessly repeating the last key you typed. It was triggered by a sequence of apparently harmless characters. The operating system we all used has the ability to broadcast messages to other users or groups of users. For fun, the interns would broadcast the key sequence for infinite key mode to this poor guy. We all worked in cubicles and so anything loud would carry around the floor. We'd only do it once in a while, and when we did, he would scream "It's happening again!".
Another time, we accessed his files using my bosses computer account (we knew his password). We moved the guys files all around. He was very upset the next day. He became convinced there was a plot against him. He demanded an investigation. The audit trail only my boss logged in at the time.
I was there working as an intern at Digital Equipment Corporation in New England for five summers.
Meanwhile, during my senior year in college, I was told by my professor that there was a scholarship available. All I had to do was apply. On the one hand, I never intended to go to graduate school and didn't plan for it. On the other hand, I was sick and tired how hard everything was for me and I just wanted to get out. I received a fellowship from General Electric to attend the graduate school of my choice. The money was supposed to be a teaching fellowship, but they weren't very strict about that.
In my last summer before leaving for college in 1984, a co-worker and I worked in the evenings on our own textual fiction game. We decided to situate the game in our own software development plant. The work of writing the underlying software of a computer system is a wizardly process and full of mystery. Our large floors of cubicles had a maze like quality.
The scope and features of the game kept growing. The pressure to do my day work and finish the game at night before leaving for school became too much. I experienced my first panic attack and have had bouts of anxiety ever since.
You started the game at the helipad. In those days, executives were transported by helicopter between sites. You then entered the building and interacted with the guard. You then explored the building, acquiring objects that would aid you in your quest. At one point, you had to visit a developer who was serious typing away, and ask his help to locate one of the necessary objects. There was a maze of cubicles which you had to navigate. In games of this type, a standard strategy for beating the maze was to drop an object into each interlinked step along the way through the maze. In our game, however, there was a cleaning crew that followed you around through the maze and moved your objects. In the end, you had to learn the combination to the company safe in order to obtain the reward and then return to the helipad to be picked up in victory.
I never expected it, but we obtained our own little piece of notoriety.
You can read about it here:
http://www.kednos.com/kednos/Open_Source/The_Halls_Of_ZK
You can read more about the PDP-8 here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-8
Our computer used the old telephone-system teletype machines which were like the Volkswagen's of input-output consoles. They were very clunky and noisy. We had one video terminal which could display 12 lines x 80 characters. It was like Christmas one day when we learned how to clear the screen from within a program as well as address any position on the screen. I adapted a star trek game to display the game board continuously on the screen.
This early computer used wrapped wires on its mother board, and also used real magnets in its core memory. One amazing thing it could do is start up again without reading a disk. Not like today where the memory forgets everything when you turn it off. With this computer, after you turned it off, you simply turned it on again, toggled the starting address and it remembered where it was.
This computer had one of the most amazing tricks I have ever seen. A visitor or technician came to visit one day. He set up a radio next to the computer and inserted a disk. He showed us a list of files. We choose "ode to joy". When he ran the file, we heard interference coming from the radio that sounded like music. He had Christmas carols on the disk as well. But the computer was not an intentional transmitter. Someone had figured out that when the computer does operation X, it generates through interference this note. And operation Y, likewise another note. Someone had hacked the computer to do something it was never supposed to do. It was so clever. I think the FCC would have something to say about this!
When I was 15, the summer my father died, I taught BASIC programming to children at our local science center. I spent all my free time at the science center because I could get computer time in exchange for helping to operate it. The computer was a DEC PDP-11/34 with RT-11 and Multi-User Basic, which was a more sophisticated and powerful system than the PDP-8.
One aspect of the software which fascinated me was that you could change the supervisory layer of the system. We could write games, but we could also change what happened before the games happened. Not only could we change the logon screen, but we could change how the logon screen worked. We could change the tool programs that others could use. For me, there was something magical about being able to change not only the games, but the underlying system itself. It was like being able to change the laws of physics or the properties of the land we walk on.
I also remember what we did at night. We would take the system down to a single user, and run larger games under the core operating system itself. My favorite was game called ADVENT, which was originally developed by Crowther and Woods. It was a textual interactive fiction game which features puzzle-solving and treasure hunting.
You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure
Those times came to an end as I moved away to live with my Aunt. The work I did at the science center was featured in The New Hampshire View.
The summer after my father died, when I was 16 years old, I was accepted as an intern at Digital Equipment Corporation.
My starting salary was $215/week. In 1981 dollars. The salary was modest, but I would have paid them to work there.
I was there during the birth of Digital's most successful hardware/software system: the VAX-11 and VMS. The engineers behind this engineering marvel are to be found in the highest echelons of computing companies today. I did nothing of this myself. I was just lucky to be there.
There was a typing speed test program. It presented a list of words in multiple columns, and you had to enter the words as quickly as you could in the time allotted. It calculated your words per minute and kept a high-score list. The secretaries used to compete with one another for who could get the fastest time. One time, another intern and I conspired to fool the typing test. We used a capability called a "pseudo-terminal" to simulate a user to the typing test. Through the pseudo-terminal we sent the words electronically, giving us an inhumanly high score. Needless to say, the secretaries were highly impressed with us.
Another time, there was a gentlemen working in our group who was a little eccentric. He seemed quite paranoid and furtive. He carried a briefcase and the only thing in it was a stick of deodorant.
Now, in those days, we used a type of terminal called a VT-100. There was a bug in the firmware of the terminal where it would get into "infinite key mode", endlessly repeating the last key you typed. It was triggered by a sequence of apparently harmless characters. The operating system we all used has the ability to broadcast messages to other users or groups of users. For fun, the interns would broadcast the key sequence for infinite key mode to this poor guy. We all worked in cubicles and so anything loud would carry around the floor. We'd only do it once in a while, and when we did, he would scream "It's happening again!".
Another time, we accessed his files using my bosses computer account (we knew his password). We moved the guys files all around. He was very upset the next day. He became convinced there was a plot against him. He demanded an investigation. The audit trail only my boss logged in at the time.
I was there working as an intern at Digital Equipment Corporation in New England for five summers.
Meanwhile, during my senior year in college, I was told by my professor that there was a scholarship available. All I had to do was apply. On the one hand, I never intended to go to graduate school and didn't plan for it. On the other hand, I was sick and tired how hard everything was for me and I just wanted to get out. I received a fellowship from General Electric to attend the graduate school of my choice. The money was supposed to be a teaching fellowship, but they weren't very strict about that.
In my last summer before leaving for college in 1984, a co-worker and I worked in the evenings on our own textual fiction game. We decided to situate the game in our own software development plant. The work of writing the underlying software of a computer system is a wizardly process and full of mystery. Our large floors of cubicles had a maze like quality.
The scope and features of the game kept growing. The pressure to do my day work and finish the game at night before leaving for school became too much. I experienced my first panic attack and have had bouts of anxiety ever since.
You started the game at the helipad. In those days, executives were transported by helicopter between sites. You then entered the building and interacted with the guard. You then explored the building, acquiring objects that would aid you in your quest. At one point, you had to visit a developer who was serious typing away, and ask his help to locate one of the necessary objects. There was a maze of cubicles which you had to navigate. In games of this type, a standard strategy for beating the maze was to drop an object into each interlinked step along the way through the maze. In our game, however, there was a cleaning crew that followed you around through the maze and moved your objects. In the end, you had to learn the combination to the company safe in order to obtain the reward and then return to the helipad to be picked up in victory.
I never expected it, but we obtained our own little piece of notoriety.
You can read about it here:
http://www.kednos.com/kednos/Open_Source/The_Halls_Of_ZK
Sunday, March 23, 2014
BiPolar Disorder and the Creative Self-Medicator
In the Spring of 2011 I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, same as my Mother and my Grandmother. This is how I came to find out. I arrived to my appointment with my sleep doctor all strung-out. I had been prescribed various doses of Adderall, Modafinil, and Ritalin to combat my daytime sleepiness over the last few years. I hadn't sleep at all the previous night, my heart was racing, I was scared and sad at the same time. My doctor checked my condition. He prescribed Xanax and gave me the card of a psychiatrist to be evaluated.
The first psychiatrist talked to me about how I was feeling on the stimulants. I said great, but I was also feeling exceptionally creative and full of ideas. I said that I was writing a lot. She asked me to bring in a sample.
I said that the stimulants, that were original prescribed for excessive sleepiness and then also for ADHD-like symptoms, had the benefit of making me feel euphoric. I also admitted that I had taken the stimulants more often in order to prolong that bigger-than-life rapidity of thought that was so wonderful. After these periods of exceptional creativity, when I would stop the stimulants for a while, I would feel intense feelings of fatigue, guilt, fear and hopelessness.
Now, you could argue that being on a stimulant and coming off a stimulant medication could result in excitement and depression. But what I was feeling was a king-of-the-world kind of superiority, followed by a sadness so intense I could barely function.
I don't know whether the first psychiatrist said I was bi-polar, but got the impression I was being considered that way.
She gave me the card of a second psychiatrist, one who specialized in complex disorders (I also had Asperger's syndrome and a sleep disorder).
The second psychiatrist also specialized in people who wouldn't take their medicine as prescribed. I didn't like the other label, as I consider myself a creative self-medicator. If you knew how powerful and right and smart and full-of-self-esteem you felt when you were manic, you might understand how someone who would do anything to stay there.
Working with my second psychiatrist, it has taken two years to achieve control and remission of my mood disorder. We are working under the assumption that I have bipolar disorder and bipolar depression. The medications that are working well for me (Lithium, Lamotrigine) are the ones indicated for these conditions.
You can read about these conditions here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder
The article also talks about "bipolar depression", which is a kind of baseline sadness that continues even after the bipolar cycling is under control.
If you ask me when I became bipolar, I would say that I've always been bipolar, but the symptoms were not as intense and were adaptive in my life. I have found that deadline situations, where I am expected to work jobs back to back long into the night, tend to bring out a crisis mode panic action in me.
There was a period of time when I felt pressured to over-achieve, in my work, in my home life, and in my church. To compound that, this over-achievement required me to act against type, having Asperger's and being unable to understand social cues. And I had a sleep disorder which included sleep apnea. I was competitive in all of these areas and my star was rising. I forced myself to achieve. I was achieving it all: the best company, the perfect family, the exemplar of service. I was busy all the time and couldn't sit still. I was finishing laundry at 11pm and still hadn't finished cleaning the kitchen. I believe that in this time of high pressure and fear of failure that I drew on a kind of low-grade mania to achieve under difficult conditions.
To illustrate the feeling of being bi-polar, I will share with you some parts of messages I sent to my doctor, the second psychiatrist.
Letter #1
Letter #2
These letters convey more of a sense of the depressive side. Looking through my message history with my Dr., the mania exhibits itself in ways I'm not very proud of. My actions show high-energy, driving too fast, staying up all night, cleaning the house after having no sleep, intense bursts of writing, and impulse purchasing.
I am sorry to say that mania has not proved very useful in practice.
Mania is, however, the most wonderful thing.
The first psychiatrist talked to me about how I was feeling on the stimulants. I said great, but I was also feeling exceptionally creative and full of ideas. I said that I was writing a lot. She asked me to bring in a sample.
I said that the stimulants, that were original prescribed for excessive sleepiness and then also for ADHD-like symptoms, had the benefit of making me feel euphoric. I also admitted that I had taken the stimulants more often in order to prolong that bigger-than-life rapidity of thought that was so wonderful. After these periods of exceptional creativity, when I would stop the stimulants for a while, I would feel intense feelings of fatigue, guilt, fear and hopelessness.
Now, you could argue that being on a stimulant and coming off a stimulant medication could result in excitement and depression. But what I was feeling was a king-of-the-world kind of superiority, followed by a sadness so intense I could barely function.
I don't know whether the first psychiatrist said I was bi-polar, but got the impression I was being considered that way.
She gave me the card of a second psychiatrist, one who specialized in complex disorders (I also had Asperger's syndrome and a sleep disorder).
The second psychiatrist also specialized in people who wouldn't take their medicine as prescribed. I didn't like the other label, as I consider myself a creative self-medicator. If you knew how powerful and right and smart and full-of-self-esteem you felt when you were manic, you might understand how someone who would do anything to stay there.
Working with my second psychiatrist, it has taken two years to achieve control and remission of my mood disorder. We are working under the assumption that I have bipolar disorder and bipolar depression. The medications that are working well for me (Lithium, Lamotrigine) are the ones indicated for these conditions.
You can read about these conditions here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder
The article also talks about "bipolar depression", which is a kind of baseline sadness that continues even after the bipolar cycling is under control.
If you ask me when I became bipolar, I would say that I've always been bipolar, but the symptoms were not as intense and were adaptive in my life. I have found that deadline situations, where I am expected to work jobs back to back long into the night, tend to bring out a crisis mode panic action in me.
There was a period of time when I felt pressured to over-achieve, in my work, in my home life, and in my church. To compound that, this over-achievement required me to act against type, having Asperger's and being unable to understand social cues. And I had a sleep disorder which included sleep apnea. I was competitive in all of these areas and my star was rising. I forced myself to achieve. I was achieving it all: the best company, the perfect family, the exemplar of service. I was busy all the time and couldn't sit still. I was finishing laundry at 11pm and still hadn't finished cleaning the kitchen. I believe that in this time of high pressure and fear of failure that I drew on a kind of low-grade mania to achieve under difficult conditions.
To illustrate the feeling of being bi-polar, I will share with you some parts of messages I sent to my doctor, the second psychiatrist.
Letter #1
hypomania
Hi Dr. Hope you are having a good Thanksgiving. I'm reporting a hypomania episode for the record, to prime our next discussion for meds dose change (which I'm not sure I'm advocating). Its been a while since my last episode. What's improved over previous is that I've needed no extra medications. The episode has corresponded to my son having come in to town this week. I've wanted everything to be ready and perfect and I've been pulling 'heroic' acts of multiple hard tasks in a day and pushing myself to have it all and give it all. Well this morning I took him to the airport and immediately I felt this pressing gloom and strong guilt and worthlessness descend. Today has been the opposite of the last few days, sadness, wanting to cry, hopelessness, guilt, unworthiness, fear. I'm really aware of the aweful lowness. But even so I am able to use selftalk and keeping busy and keep marching forward to get some things done and go through the motions. I really feel it, but I also have more presence of mind and less impatience. Even though I am not impaired, I have noticed I am not driving well today as I am not paying attention well and I'm making stupid decisions. It doesn't help there are a million drivers everywhere today. That's the report for the record. One hypomania for thanksgiving. Regards,
near overwhelming depression
Hello Dr., I've been putting off writing you a letter. No emergency. While I don't want to take too much of your time, I feel like I need to communicate to you the vividness of my feelings at this point in time, so we can talk more broadly about how I am, at other points of the week besides Friday. I've just taken a Xanax and we'll see if that helps. Now that a lot of the pressure is off in my life (cold season, allergy season, helping children with college applications, transitioning to new boss and new work) I am left with just myself as I am and my thoughts. There is crisis, no must-do checklist, no emergency or death-march. There is just me adapting to live a normal, non adrenaline life. And as I contemplate my day, my week and onward, with nothing forcing me or nothing to hide myself, I feel tremendous sense of emptiness. Of despondency, of inadequacy, of fear of the future, a sense of ambiguity and uncertainty in my job and work. When I'm not in a crisis, when I'm not in pressure cooker or a terrible situation, I am alone and empty and faced with just myself. I don't know that I have ever learned to face myself and live with myself as I am. I don't know what I should do. I eat. I read. I do the chores. I watch movies. But right now, there is this tremendous overwhelming sense of despondency when I am not busy and when I am not putting on a brave face for others. This terrible fear of myself and my empty life has been creeping back over the last few weeks. Last week during easter I went through the motions with the stim med, and it just magnified the struggle against the pointlessness. I hope and have some faith that tomorrow will be better and I will find a way to accomplish the kind of open-ended leadership my new boss wants of me, but I am terrified and lacking confidence I can do it (but I usually can). Is this fear for my new role. I am being asked to be a technical facilitator and guide what needs to be guided and unblock what needs to be unblocked for a team with an open-ended deliverable and an open-ended deadline. For some, this might be a dream job for creativity and interpretation and self-direction. But I am overcome by the lack of structure in my work, and in my life. I don't know what to do and how to live when I am not in a crisis or forcing myself toward a deadline. In some sense all my deadlines have come and gone for me in terms of work goals and getting the kids through their year at school and getting their college choices ready for them. We are all left now with playing out our choices. And my lot is really not a bad lot - its a pretty good lot in terms of job, money, family, health, possessions. And if things were to keep going as they are, well things are pretty good all and all - certainly nothing to complain about. But me, my life, my living - right now is directionless and without any hope or interest. Anyway, let me try to wrap up. I feel that the use of meds in the past few weeks, and the lack of real utility to the current meds, is that they aren't addressing this consuming sense of despondency, this 'post partum depression' of my life goals having gotten through the worst and now not knowing how to enjoy going on. I think back to the meds I have used and I keep thinking about the wellbutrin. It was flattening to an extent, but I remember also feeling not-sad and accepting of my life state. I don't feel comfortable in being myself at the moment and have felt so despondent this weekend that I would bear some flatness just not feel so said and alone and inadequate. I am not a danger to myself. I am just sharing with you the profound incompleteness and emptiness that I think is at the core of mental state. Or maybe this is my true baseline and it is a depressed one. I'll use the Xanax today. I'll go work a normal day tomorrow and I have some faith I will bounce back and keep going.
These letters convey more of a sense of the depressive side. Looking through my message history with my Dr., the mania exhibits itself in ways I'm not very proud of. My actions show high-energy, driving too fast, staying up all night, cleaning the house after having no sleep, intense bursts of writing, and impulse purchasing.
I am sorry to say that mania has not proved very useful in practice.
Mania is, however, the most wonderful thing.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
On Being Highly Sensitive
I really connected with the book, The Highly Sensitive Person (1996), by Elaine Aron.
Here is the review that I wrote on the site GoodReads.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/429435474
Here is a link to the highly sensitive person test by Elaine Aron.
http://www.hsperson.com/pages/test.htm
I answer true for all of these dimensions.
On p. 44, Ms. Aron relates how an infant's attachment to their parents is influenced by their parenting behavior . She explains that when an infant receives the message that they are too much trouble and better off being independent, the child develops an "avoidant attachment".
This reaction is described in this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_in_adults#Dismissive.E2.80.93avoidant_attachment
I feel the section "dismissive attachment" describes me best.
I think it is insightful that a lack of secureness can result in higher levels of stress hormone in a child. (p 34) Children and adults who are stressed for long periods of time are more prone to depression. (p. 200) High levels of over-arousal can lead to problems with sleep.
Ms. Aron's book helped me identify qualities that are a challenge, and qualities that are helpful.
Challenges
- Stimulation leaves me exhausted (p. 8)
- Deeply affected by other people's moods (p. 11)
- Difficulty functioning when I am being observed
- Trouble sleeping deeply, trouble falling asleep again (p. 25)
- Difficulty finding the right level of arousal: easily bored yet easily over-stimulated. (p. 30)
- Strongly effected by hunger (p. 42)
Benefits
- Greater awareness of the subtle (p. 7)
- Able to concentrate deeply (p. 10)
- Good at spotting errors, vigilance, conscientious (p. 10)
The list of qualities of a sensitive nervous system on page 11 is remarkable for its similarity to me: good at holding still, being a morning-person, being more affected by stimulants and depressants, and being highly sensitive to things in the air.
Since I have difficulties with sleep, it was revealing to see the list of sleep-related situations on the overstimulation test. (p. 50). I often have problems getting to sleep and staying asleep. I have a tendency to fall asleep in meetings unless I am involved. I often wake in the early morning before my time to get up.
Another interesting aspect of sensitivity is an intruding awareness of other's needs and moods. As it is described in the book, I have trouble keeping boundaries. "Many HSPs [highly sensitive persons] tell me that a major problem for them is poor boundaries - getting involved in situations that are not really their business or their problem, letting too many people distress them, saying more than they wanted, getting mired I other people's messes, becoming too intimate too fast or with the wrong people." (p. 61). This behavior has caused problems for me throughout my life and I am just now as a mature adult learning to mind my own business.
I am told by my Doctor that being an HSP is not a diagnosis but rather a cluster of traits. Be that as it may, this book has great descriptive power for me.
Here is the review that I wrote on the site GoodReads.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/429435474
Here is a link to the highly sensitive person test by Elaine Aron.
http://www.hsperson.com/pages/test.htm
I answer true for all of these dimensions.
On p. 44, Ms. Aron relates how an infant's attachment to their parents is influenced by their parenting behavior . She explains that when an infant receives the message that they are too much trouble and better off being independent, the child develops an "avoidant attachment".
This reaction is described in this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_in_adults#Dismissive.E2.80.93avoidant_attachment
I feel the section "dismissive attachment" describes me best.
I think it is insightful that a lack of secureness can result in higher levels of stress hormone in a child. (p 34) Children and adults who are stressed for long periods of time are more prone to depression. (p. 200) High levels of over-arousal can lead to problems with sleep.
Ms. Aron's book helped me identify qualities that are a challenge, and qualities that are helpful.
Challenges
- Stimulation leaves me exhausted (p. 8)
- Deeply affected by other people's moods (p. 11)
- Difficulty functioning when I am being observed
- Trouble sleeping deeply, trouble falling asleep again (p. 25)
- Difficulty finding the right level of arousal: easily bored yet easily over-stimulated. (p. 30)
- Strongly effected by hunger (p. 42)
Benefits
- Greater awareness of the subtle (p. 7)
- Able to concentrate deeply (p. 10)
- Good at spotting errors, vigilance, conscientious (p. 10)
The list of qualities of a sensitive nervous system on page 11 is remarkable for its similarity to me: good at holding still, being a morning-person, being more affected by stimulants and depressants, and being highly sensitive to things in the air.
Since I have difficulties with sleep, it was revealing to see the list of sleep-related situations on the overstimulation test. (p. 50). I often have problems getting to sleep and staying asleep. I have a tendency to fall asleep in meetings unless I am involved. I often wake in the early morning before my time to get up.
Another interesting aspect of sensitivity is an intruding awareness of other's needs and moods. As it is described in the book, I have trouble keeping boundaries. "Many HSPs [highly sensitive persons] tell me that a major problem for them is poor boundaries - getting involved in situations that are not really their business or their problem, letting too many people distress them, saying more than they wanted, getting mired I other people's messes, becoming too intimate too fast or with the wrong people." (p. 61). This behavior has caused problems for me throughout my life and I am just now as a mature adult learning to mind my own business.
I am told by my Doctor that being an HSP is not a diagnosis but rather a cluster of traits. Be that as it may, this book has great descriptive power for me.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
"Pull Yourself Together"
I don't have very many memories of my mother. I didn't know her. There was a time when I was so embarrassed of her that it was easier to say I didn't have one.
My earliest memory involving my mother is of my father cutting the hair of my brother and I in the late 60's when I was around 5. He was giving us crew cuts with an electric shear. My mother was crying: "they look like convicts!".
I have always enjoyed cole slaw without knowing why. I'm searching for a cole slaw recipe I can't find. I often order cole slaw myself, or politely have other people's. My children don't like it. It was after my mother's death that I had a memory of her making it. It had coarse cabbage and dressing and little black seeds on top.
We lived in Needham, MA from about 1966 through 1974. My father was very busy, completing his Residency and teaching in Boston. My sister was born in 1967. After that, my mother suffered from severe post-partum depression. She became increasingly withdrawn until she was institutionalized in 1971. During that period when I was between ages four to eight, what I don't remember is bonding. I don't remember nurturing or connecting. I remember just having to watch her. I remember her just sitting in the living room looking pretty but sad, smoking and watching soap operas. She is a figure removed from me, like a picture in a magazine.
* * *
My mother was born in New York City in 1936 to Robert Birkin and Priscilla Lowe. She was born prematurely. In those days, they never allowed a mother to be with her child. There was no essential bonding.
Priscilla was Cum Laude from North Western, described as a "cold fish", "extremely competent", tall and good looking. Bob is described as an "interesting guy", who lost his father early on.
In 1948, Susan, age 12, lived with her sister Anne, age 10, and their cousin, Don, age 15 in Chagrin Falls, OH.
Priscilla is described as smoking all the time, even when cooking. She would read while cooking. She put the pot on the table in front of the kids and that was it. The kids never got hugged.
One time, Priscilla hired a construction team to build a village for wooden statues in their yard. It would hold the set of African figures they had acquired from all over the world. It looked like the Taj Mahal.
Bob is described as remote and not happy. He worked at Cleveland Crane Engineering.
As a child, Susan is described as super, open, full of love and welcoming. She was a straight A student.
Susan's sister Anne died of polio about 1950.
Not long after, Bob informed Don that they were getting divorced.
Priscilla was committed to Winsor Sanatorium for schizophrenia.
Later on, Priscilla was to live in Chicago and rented out the entire floor of the Drake Hotel.
In 1951, Bob remarried to Jean Reynolds. Jean is described as an "ice queen". Jean was very critical of Susan. Susan did not live up to Jean's expectations.
* * *
It is 1972, and I am visiting my mother at McLean hospital in Belmont MA.
You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLean_Hospital
It is a very exclusive and well-endowed clinic. It is a facility of Harvard University which is where my Father received his medical degree. The Nobel Prize winning mathematician, John Nash, was treated here. His life story was told in the book A Beautiful Mind, with a movie of the same name.
I remember being brought to visit and sitting in a central café under an atrium. My mother is brought out and joins us at the table. The children receive snacks from the snack-bar. She is quiet and withdrawn. There is nothing to say.
In 1973, my father went to see Bob to tell him that he and Susan were getting divorced. He said, Susan's not behaving. He said that he loved her, but she wasn't available. He said he would financially support her.
My memories from this time forward are a series of visitations.
After she left McLean, she lived at a half-way house in Boston. She held a job briefly.
In the mid-70's, my brother and I would be put on a Trailways bus to travel from Nashua NH to Boston. The Boston bus station was a scary place. Often times my mother would meet us, and we wouldn't even leave the terminal. One time, we got off the bus and there was no one there to meet us. I left messages repeatedly with my father's answering service. There was nothing for it except to wait until the time of the return ticket.
Don's sister, Helen, helped my Mother return to Cleveland around 1980. She was put in a half-way house, and was trained to get a job. She wasn't stable enough to keep a job. She is described as being two people. At times, she wouldn't know people and say "why are you here?" At other times, she would recognize the person, and she would also know that her world had changed.
She lived in a nursing home for many years. Her son Tom brought her to Maine for the final years of her life, where she was surrounded by family.
***
"Susan Birkin is Bride of Harvard Medical Student" reads the newspaper article. It is Jun of 1959. My parents are married at the Federated Church. The wedding is described as the culmination of a college romance, Susan having attended Smith and Charles attending Amherst, receiving their degrees in 1958. We are told the couple will honeymoon in Bermuda, and then Mr. Lees will continue his studies at Harvard.
I remember having seen a picture of my parents riding motor bikes on their honeymoon.
After the honeymoon, Susan is described as being changed. She confided that she didn't want to ride the motor bike, but he forced her to do it. One time not long there after she jumped up from the table and ran out of the room. The family explained it as "just nerves".
The pressure from my father and her step-mother was heavy. After she and Charles visit Bob and Jean, Susan is sharply criticized by Jean for looking disheveled after a nap. Charley doesn't respond but Don rises to her defense.
She is described as beginning to come unglued.
My parents lived in Boston while my father finished medical school. Susan wanted a TV. The story goes that my father didn't want a TV and wouldn't get her one because he claimed it would interfere with his studying. She was sad and unhappy.
At the time of my birth in 1963, my father is described as being happy and my mother enjoyed shopping for baby clothes.
She described as lovely, sweet, but sort of sad. She is described as being a little bewildered by life in general.
My father is described as being unsympathetic and giving little emotional support. It's described as a family trait. There wasn't much sympathy for weakness.
After my sister was born in 1967, Susan seemed to be at a loss for what to do. My grandmother told my mother that she should "pull herself together". Susan just sat there and cried, "But what does that mean?"
My earliest memory involving my mother is of my father cutting the hair of my brother and I in the late 60's when I was around 5. He was giving us crew cuts with an electric shear. My mother was crying: "they look like convicts!".
I have always enjoyed cole slaw without knowing why. I'm searching for a cole slaw recipe I can't find. I often order cole slaw myself, or politely have other people's. My children don't like it. It was after my mother's death that I had a memory of her making it. It had coarse cabbage and dressing and little black seeds on top.
We lived in Needham, MA from about 1966 through 1974. My father was very busy, completing his Residency and teaching in Boston. My sister was born in 1967. After that, my mother suffered from severe post-partum depression. She became increasingly withdrawn until she was institutionalized in 1971. During that period when I was between ages four to eight, what I don't remember is bonding. I don't remember nurturing or connecting. I remember just having to watch her. I remember her just sitting in the living room looking pretty but sad, smoking and watching soap operas. She is a figure removed from me, like a picture in a magazine.
* * *
My mother was born in New York City in 1936 to Robert Birkin and Priscilla Lowe. She was born prematurely. In those days, they never allowed a mother to be with her child. There was no essential bonding.
Priscilla was Cum Laude from North Western, described as a "cold fish", "extremely competent", tall and good looking. Bob is described as an "interesting guy", who lost his father early on.
In 1948, Susan, age 12, lived with her sister Anne, age 10, and their cousin, Don, age 15 in Chagrin Falls, OH.
Priscilla is described as smoking all the time, even when cooking. She would read while cooking. She put the pot on the table in front of the kids and that was it. The kids never got hugged.
One time, Priscilla hired a construction team to build a village for wooden statues in their yard. It would hold the set of African figures they had acquired from all over the world. It looked like the Taj Mahal.
Bob is described as remote and not happy. He worked at Cleveland Crane Engineering.
As a child, Susan is described as super, open, full of love and welcoming. She was a straight A student.
Susan's sister Anne died of polio about 1950.
Not long after, Bob informed Don that they were getting divorced.
Priscilla was committed to Winsor Sanatorium for schizophrenia.
Later on, Priscilla was to live in Chicago and rented out the entire floor of the Drake Hotel.
In 1951, Bob remarried to Jean Reynolds. Jean is described as an "ice queen". Jean was very critical of Susan. Susan did not live up to Jean's expectations.
* * *
It is 1972, and I am visiting my mother at McLean hospital in Belmont MA.
You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLean_Hospital
It is a very exclusive and well-endowed clinic. It is a facility of Harvard University which is where my Father received his medical degree. The Nobel Prize winning mathematician, John Nash, was treated here. His life story was told in the book A Beautiful Mind, with a movie of the same name.
I remember being brought to visit and sitting in a central café under an atrium. My mother is brought out and joins us at the table. The children receive snacks from the snack-bar. She is quiet and withdrawn. There is nothing to say.
In 1973, my father went to see Bob to tell him that he and Susan were getting divorced. He said, Susan's not behaving. He said that he loved her, but she wasn't available. He said he would financially support her.
My memories from this time forward are a series of visitations.
After she left McLean, she lived at a half-way house in Boston. She held a job briefly.
In the mid-70's, my brother and I would be put on a Trailways bus to travel from Nashua NH to Boston. The Boston bus station was a scary place. Often times my mother would meet us, and we wouldn't even leave the terminal. One time, we got off the bus and there was no one there to meet us. I left messages repeatedly with my father's answering service. There was nothing for it except to wait until the time of the return ticket.
Don's sister, Helen, helped my Mother return to Cleveland around 1980. She was put in a half-way house, and was trained to get a job. She wasn't stable enough to keep a job. She is described as being two people. At times, she wouldn't know people and say "why are you here?" At other times, she would recognize the person, and she would also know that her world had changed.
She lived in a nursing home for many years. Her son Tom brought her to Maine for the final years of her life, where she was surrounded by family.
***
"Susan Birkin is Bride of Harvard Medical Student" reads the newspaper article. It is Jun of 1959. My parents are married at the Federated Church. The wedding is described as the culmination of a college romance, Susan having attended Smith and Charles attending Amherst, receiving their degrees in 1958. We are told the couple will honeymoon in Bermuda, and then Mr. Lees will continue his studies at Harvard.
I remember having seen a picture of my parents riding motor bikes on their honeymoon.
After the honeymoon, Susan is described as being changed. She confided that she didn't want to ride the motor bike, but he forced her to do it. One time not long there after she jumped up from the table and ran out of the room. The family explained it as "just nerves".
The pressure from my father and her step-mother was heavy. After she and Charles visit Bob and Jean, Susan is sharply criticized by Jean for looking disheveled after a nap. Charley doesn't respond but Don rises to her defense.
She is described as beginning to come unglued.
My parents lived in Boston while my father finished medical school. Susan wanted a TV. The story goes that my father didn't want a TV and wouldn't get her one because he claimed it would interfere with his studying. She was sad and unhappy.
At the time of my birth in 1963, my father is described as being happy and my mother enjoyed shopping for baby clothes.
She described as lovely, sweet, but sort of sad. She is described as being a little bewildered by life in general.
My father is described as being unsympathetic and giving little emotional support. It's described as a family trait. There wasn't much sympathy for weakness.
After my sister was born in 1967, Susan seemed to be at a loss for what to do. My grandmother told my mother that she should "pull herself together". Susan just sat there and cried, "But what does that mean?"
Sunday, February 16, 2014
"Aye, there's the rub"
When I was a child, I had an electric analog clock. It was white and boxy. It had a gold wire that you pulled out in the back to set the alarm. The alarm sound was a buzzer mixed with a fire alarm mixed with an electric shock. When it woke me up, it jolted me out of bed with my heart racing and my mind filled with fear. Waking suddenly, especially in the dark, leaves me disoriented. I startle easily.
I think it is for this reason that I stopped allow myself being woken up by alarms - never again would allow myself to be startled during the night. Now I watch them throughout the night and anticipate them. I must have a clock with me in the room when I sleep. I need to watch it I need to always know where I am in the course of the night at all times. I wake in the night, check the time, and go back to sleep. I set the alarm at bedtime, to symbolically represent the end of my journey. But I only sleep lightly, especially the last two hours. I snooze myself for an hour anticipating the alarm time, and then shut it off a minute before.
I have always had poor sleep, as long as I can remember. I have always awoken without feeling refreshed. I have double black bags under my eyes that never go away. I can remember my teacher in high school saying that I shouldn't be this tired.
When I was in high school, I slept in a room in the basement without any windows. Today, a room like this would have been considered against code. There was no way to synchronize my sleep with the natural world. I had to work extra hard to sleep and wake in a place like this.
My father snored very loudly. He knew it because he talked about the remedies of his day, such as sewing a small round object into the back of one's pajama top. I mentioned once before that my father remarried, to an impractical actress. Before the separation, the first sign of trouble in the marriage that I remember, other than dismissing the maid, was my father being banished to another bedroom for his loud snoring.
I have always snored very loudly. My children used to put a towel under the bedroom door. When camping, others in the next tent referred to me as the Bear.
As long as I can remember, I have been quick to spring to action on rising, but lacking in that quality of feeling rested. I have always had that quality of sleeping with one eye open. This came in handy during the infancy of my three children - that I could arise to tend them in the night almost instantly. I am on alert in the night.
I have adapted to the reality of being unrested by keeping myself stimulated - by being busy and anxious and nervous. I can't sit still for very long. I am restless. I must be up and about, engaged with busy work. Otherwise I fall asleep where I sit.
This behavior of falling asleep in inappropriate public places is called low sleep-onset latency. I can remember in high school and college of the early 80's having the squiggly scrawl crash line in my notes, where I had dozed off in the middle of writing. After I started employment my managers were commenting on my visible sleep-crashes in meetings.
I can recall in 1990 when the president of our company came to our site to speak to the team. I was so excited to see him that I came to the room early to sit up front. However this proved my undoing as I feel asleep in front of him while he was speaking. I received a good talking-to after that.
At home, I cannot sit through an entire movie non-stop without standing up. I start to feel sleepy and sick and weak if I don't get up and move every fifteen minutes or so. I am always working around the house, if after 10p, to find some little chore to do like doing laundry or the dishes.
There's always more work to be done. I can't rest. Or else.
In addition to the falling-asleep incidents at work, and the snoring, my partner said that I gasped for air while sleeping. She said that I would stop breathing, then gasp suddenly, then fall back asleep. This is a tragic thing to have to happen to someone over and over in their sleep and they don't even know it. This is known as sleep apnea.
I started going to the sleep disorder center in the 1990's. It was there that I had my first overnight sleep study. A sleep study is like having an EKG, but with more electrodes. My first study was not wholly definitive, with the diagnosis of idiopathic hypersomnia. This is an increased tendency toward sleepiness for an unspecific reason.
The number of gasping incidents is measured by the AHI. My number was nineteen, which is in the moderate range. I was prescribed a CPAP machine which provides pressured airflow into my throat through a mask.
My sleep doctor said years later that if he had known of my bipolor disorder, he would have diagnosed my condition differently. Bipolor disorder can affect sleep, but also good sleep hygiene can manage the occurrence of manias.
http://bipolar.about.com/cs/sleep/a/0002_mood_sleep.htm
My first sleep study was in a cluster of rooms built into the below-ground parking garage of the hospital. Inside the lab there were control rooms with EKG machines for monitoring, hotel bedrooms for sleeping, and technicians awake all night for operating the study. As I was being escorted down the halls, I remarked that this ought to be a magical, mysterious place: the place where dreams were made. The techs looked at me like I should try working the night-shift.
Sleep studies do not monitor dreams. They monitor the cycles of sleep, in which dreaming may occur. Dreaming is associated with the REM phase, but dreaming does occur during other phases as well. The technicians do not see the dreams, nor can they control them. My dreams are mine. When I awake the operator asks me whether I dreamed.
There is something spooky about having someone watch you while you sleep.
Sleep studies remind me of the great novel by Ursula K. Leguin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven
The PBS film adaption of the novel is also excellent.
One of the powerful images from the novel that has always stuck with me is the association of sleeping deeply and sinking deeply into the ocean. We drop deeper and deeper into the depths. It becomes darker and more mysterious. What is it like to float there? What is it that we see?
In the novel, we question what is the relation between dreaming and our reality? Could this reality we experience be but the fevered dream of another tortured soul? And can our dreaming or stopping dreaming really change the future? Is it a different world after dreaming?
For me, one important lesson I have learned is the need for letting go and letting sleep. I tend to focus and hold thoughts and concerns in my mind, over and over in a loop. Sometimes I sleep a shallow sleep because I don't want to let these thoughts go. I hold yesterday in my mind and prevent it from passing.
Suppose you were to pull an all-nighter. Would the next day be the next day, for you? No, it would be hour 25 of yesterday. When you pulled that all-nighter, you held yesterday and retained yesterday's reality across the night. Now today is yesterday again.
Now suppose instead that you had gone to sleep. The day you did awake to would have been a new day, with an updated sense of priorities and perceptions. You would perceive the new day for what it is. You would have forgotten the hot mental state of yesterday, and would be assembling a new today based only on what is salient.
Here is a proverb on sleep:
"The wise man doesn't go to sleep when he's tired, he goes to sleep when he's sleepy".
I think it is for this reason that I stopped allow myself being woken up by alarms - never again would allow myself to be startled during the night. Now I watch them throughout the night and anticipate them. I must have a clock with me in the room when I sleep. I need to watch it I need to always know where I am in the course of the night at all times. I wake in the night, check the time, and go back to sleep. I set the alarm at bedtime, to symbolically represent the end of my journey. But I only sleep lightly, especially the last two hours. I snooze myself for an hour anticipating the alarm time, and then shut it off a minute before.
I have always had poor sleep, as long as I can remember. I have always awoken without feeling refreshed. I have double black bags under my eyes that never go away. I can remember my teacher in high school saying that I shouldn't be this tired.
When I was in high school, I slept in a room in the basement without any windows. Today, a room like this would have been considered against code. There was no way to synchronize my sleep with the natural world. I had to work extra hard to sleep and wake in a place like this.
My father snored very loudly. He knew it because he talked about the remedies of his day, such as sewing a small round object into the back of one's pajama top. I mentioned once before that my father remarried, to an impractical actress. Before the separation, the first sign of trouble in the marriage that I remember, other than dismissing the maid, was my father being banished to another bedroom for his loud snoring.
I have always snored very loudly. My children used to put a towel under the bedroom door. When camping, others in the next tent referred to me as the Bear.
As long as I can remember, I have been quick to spring to action on rising, but lacking in that quality of feeling rested. I have always had that quality of sleeping with one eye open. This came in handy during the infancy of my three children - that I could arise to tend them in the night almost instantly. I am on alert in the night.
I have adapted to the reality of being unrested by keeping myself stimulated - by being busy and anxious and nervous. I can't sit still for very long. I am restless. I must be up and about, engaged with busy work. Otherwise I fall asleep where I sit.
This behavior of falling asleep in inappropriate public places is called low sleep-onset latency. I can remember in high school and college of the early 80's having the squiggly scrawl crash line in my notes, where I had dozed off in the middle of writing. After I started employment my managers were commenting on my visible sleep-crashes in meetings.
I can recall in 1990 when the president of our company came to our site to speak to the team. I was so excited to see him that I came to the room early to sit up front. However this proved my undoing as I feel asleep in front of him while he was speaking. I received a good talking-to after that.
At home, I cannot sit through an entire movie non-stop without standing up. I start to feel sleepy and sick and weak if I don't get up and move every fifteen minutes or so. I am always working around the house, if after 10p, to find some little chore to do like doing laundry or the dishes.
There's always more work to be done. I can't rest. Or else.
In addition to the falling-asleep incidents at work, and the snoring, my partner said that I gasped for air while sleeping. She said that I would stop breathing, then gasp suddenly, then fall back asleep. This is a tragic thing to have to happen to someone over and over in their sleep and they don't even know it. This is known as sleep apnea.
I started going to the sleep disorder center in the 1990's. It was there that I had my first overnight sleep study. A sleep study is like having an EKG, but with more electrodes. My first study was not wholly definitive, with the diagnosis of idiopathic hypersomnia. This is an increased tendency toward sleepiness for an unspecific reason.
The number of gasping incidents is measured by the AHI. My number was nineteen, which is in the moderate range. I was prescribed a CPAP machine which provides pressured airflow into my throat through a mask.
My sleep doctor said years later that if he had known of my bipolor disorder, he would have diagnosed my condition differently. Bipolor disorder can affect sleep, but also good sleep hygiene can manage the occurrence of manias.
http://bipolar.about.com/cs/sleep/a/0002_mood_sleep.htm
My first sleep study was in a cluster of rooms built into the below-ground parking garage of the hospital. Inside the lab there were control rooms with EKG machines for monitoring, hotel bedrooms for sleeping, and technicians awake all night for operating the study. As I was being escorted down the halls, I remarked that this ought to be a magical, mysterious place: the place where dreams were made. The techs looked at me like I should try working the night-shift.
Sleep studies do not monitor dreams. They monitor the cycles of sleep, in which dreaming may occur. Dreaming is associated with the REM phase, but dreaming does occur during other phases as well. The technicians do not see the dreams, nor can they control them. My dreams are mine. When I awake the operator asks me whether I dreamed.
There is something spooky about having someone watch you while you sleep.
Sleep studies remind me of the great novel by Ursula K. Leguin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven
The PBS film adaption of the novel is also excellent.
One of the powerful images from the novel that has always stuck with me is the association of sleeping deeply and sinking deeply into the ocean. We drop deeper and deeper into the depths. It becomes darker and more mysterious. What is it like to float there? What is it that we see?
In the novel, we question what is the relation between dreaming and our reality? Could this reality we experience be but the fevered dream of another tortured soul? And can our dreaming or stopping dreaming really change the future? Is it a different world after dreaming?
For me, one important lesson I have learned is the need for letting go and letting sleep. I tend to focus and hold thoughts and concerns in my mind, over and over in a loop. Sometimes I sleep a shallow sleep because I don't want to let these thoughts go. I hold yesterday in my mind and prevent it from passing.
Suppose you were to pull an all-nighter. Would the next day be the next day, for you? No, it would be hour 25 of yesterday. When you pulled that all-nighter, you held yesterday and retained yesterday's reality across the night. Now today is yesterday again.
Now suppose instead that you had gone to sleep. The day you did awake to would have been a new day, with an updated sense of priorities and perceptions. You would perceive the new day for what it is. You would have forgotten the hot mental state of yesterday, and would be assembling a new today based only on what is salient.
Here is a proverb on sleep:
"The wise man doesn't go to sleep when he's tired, he goes to sleep when he's sleepy".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)