Didn’t happen.

I spent the next 7 days, ’til about Nov. 6th, gaining weight. I actually gained 4 lbs. back total (so I was at a net loss of 7). Essentially, I wasted/lost a month on a plateau, then 4 lb. gain. Urrrghhh!! That was seriously maddening.

It was all food-related, of course, I was eating too much and too much of the wrong thing. Even complex carbs just stick to me if I don’t eat them at about 1:10 with protein.

I finally figured this carb thing out though. It’s not just that I "love carbs" or am a "Carbohydrate Addict" or even that I’m "pre-diabetic" (the last being my mother’s explanation for the panoply of odd symptoms).

I’m Sugar Sensitive. Sugar is a drug to my brain. Literally. This is a brain chemistry thing… low baseline serotonin and beta-endorphins, leading to more serotonin and beta-endorphin receptors in each synapse, which creates an extra-big "hit" of serotonin and its partner beta-endorphin when I eat sugar or simple carbs. I am an addict. Physically, addicted. Because of how my brain has been built from the start …….. structure which incidentally also causes depression (check), anxiety (check), and clearly contributes to my PTSD.

So now that I understand my tempestuous relationship with sugar, I’m finding it much easier not only to not eat it (I don’t want it), but when I do crave it, I’m listening to my body and just eating a little. No drama, no resisting, no struggle … just up and eat some. *shrug* This is a long-term battle, and I’m not going to be able to cut it out 100% right now. But I can slowly work in that direction. :)

Since that discovery, I’ve dropped 6 lbs in 10 days. For a net total of 13 GONE.

And I’m not hungry, and I’m not eating much at all. :) Now if I could just get rid of this damn migraine (hormones again, *sigh*) I’d be golden.

The car turned off in Ellison Bay. Wanting to get a good look at the (crab-fisherman-looking) driver, I knew I would have to go around the block so that our vehicles would meet driver-to-driver, and then I could get a good look at the fellow and see if it was anybody I knew.

This required I drive down The Road past the (now rebuilt) exploded duplex. However, at the chance to see Sig (LOL) or another crab fisherman that I dearly admire, I decided it was worth it. This could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Not everybody has “AK CRAB” license plates, you know.

So I turned in at the next road, then turned left on The Road, and approached The Place where the buildings Blew Up. Every time I go through there, I view it through the lens of that night … I see trees standing in the same place they stood That Night …. I see the outdoor fireplace standing where it stood That Night … the road curves exactly like it did That Night … everything is seen through the sights burned in my brain from That Night. I don’t see it free-standing as today; I see it in comparison to That Night.

Anyway.

First I drove past the blown-up building, but I looked at the water and the boats in the harbor instead.

Next came the building next door, the one that the siding melted off of. On the far half of the duplex, a middle-aged man laid out on one of the front porch benches. He was bald, tanned, wearing just swim trunks. And he was just laying there, out on the bench.

My breath caught in my throat. Oh my God! I thought. My eyes were big and I was gaping at this guy. Doesn’t he know the danger? Doesn’t he know how he could get hurt there???

I was floored. Absolutely boggled. How could he just lay there out in the open, in the blast zone? Like nothing was going on? *blink*

Of course, the beach towels and flip-flops on all four front porches suggested that nothing was going on. People were “around” these buildings and apparently they were all blissfully unaware. But I knew what they didn’t know. I knew the danger was real, because I had seen the evidence — I had seen it exploded. For real.

* * *

Still reeling at people just milling around unprotected in the blast zone (un-freakin’-real) I rounded the corner to find Alaska crab fisherman car, and a 30-ish man had gotten out, with a cute little boy in tow. On the other side his very pretty wife was walking with an adorable little girl. I did not recognize the man as anybody from Deadliest Catch. I even tried to envision the fellow in full-length rain gear… still no dice.

Later, at home, it finally dawned on me that that man sunbathing on the porch was so relaxed and unprotected because now, today, in 2008, there is no danger there. It is safe. Nothing is exploded and nothing is going to explode. He could lay out on that bench nearly buck-naked and not worry about getting hit by flying debris, because there is no debris.

However, I have a complete and total disconnect with that concept.

I still feel acute danger — tangible, present, run-for-cover danger. I see the blast zone. I know how building parts can fly and where people would get hit (depending on where they were standing). And I get the hell out of there anytime I am anywhere near it. I’m not stupid. It blew once, I know it could blow again, at any time. With no warning. Just like last time. When it did happen.

###

Not skeletal muscles, as that would be like back spasms? I don’t have back spasms.

But my left hip, the internal muscles which keep the femur pulled up into the pelvis, squeeze tight. Not the external buttock muscles. The internal ones. The result is that the femur is pushed up into the cartilage and joint constantly, and the hip joint (in my pelvis) becomes really sore. Not so much sore to walk on, but it hurts particularly bad to lay on.

Although I’ll describe it to my family that “my hip is spasming up again,” it’s not really a spasm, because spasms are involuntary. This is voluntary, but controlled subconsciously; It’s not like I choose to do it, like picking my nose! It just happens.

But “spasm” closely describes the tension and tightness of the muscles that are clenched up. It closely describes the fact I am not trying to tense up my hip. And after 20 or 30 minutes, the whole joint just aches.

I try to be aware of it, and consciously relax the whole hip joint. However I’ll catch it and do this relaxation exercise easily 30+ times an hour.. sometimes several times a minute. It’s a constant battle with this subconscious thing that keeps tightening the muscles up. And I do the whole awareness-relaxation thing because if I don’t, if I left the joint stay spasmed up, it is unbelievably sore for days. At its worst, I haven’t been able to even sit on the hip. Give that whirl in real life … NOT!

So I am perpetually distracted by checking whether my hip is tightened up, then stopping whatever I’m working on and focusing on forcing the muscles and whole joint to relax. Then I go back to whatever I was thinking about.

The net result is, I am constantly distracted, and inefficient, and I often forget what I was doing, or what I was thinking about. This makes even checking or acting on emails impossible at times… I can’t follow a thought process through. It is supremely annoying, and leaves me feeling incapable.

I mean, people have posted a lot of bad reviews online. But I’m starting to wonder if it’s like anything else… 10x as many people will report a bad experience than will post a good experience… complainers are louder than happy people… and then we have that pesky one-size-never-fits-all that goes on with anti-depressants in general. ADs are such a flukey thing. The effects are so variable person-to-person. So I feel like I hit the jackpot, just for not wanting to off myself. :-P

The side-effects I reported the first week (the Day 4 post) have all but disappeared. All side-effects were gone within 2 weeks.

The longest, and most difficult for me, were the insomnia and restlessness… but they did both go away abruptly at about Day 10. The intestinal irregularities *ahem* have been highly annoying, but things are moving again without *ahem* pharmaceutical intervention. :) The only noticeable symptom that continues is sensitivity to pain, and that is slowly lessening with time. Key word being slowly. But even that is not near as bad as it was a week ago. A week ago, I wanted to cut off darn near every joint in my body…

The obvious effect, anti-depressant, is working just fine. I think that if I was in normal circumstances, I would feel great. Unfortunately I am surrounded by a very messy house (which aggravates and distracts the crap out of me, and about which I feel overwhelmed and incapable) and I am facing foreclosure on my business real estate. Intellectually I am glad to give the bank that worthless troublesome piece of sh*t, I am glad to have that ugly sore out of my life; but emotionally I carry a mountain of shame and embarrassment. I constantly wonder what people in town must think of me, how they look down on me. That I am a dismal and utter failure. And that, that’s a desperate, crushing weight to carry.

I keep reminding myself I did the best I could do at the time. I have gone back and picked apart my circumstances of the last 4 years, bit by bit, decision by decision, and I keep coming to the same conclusions I did then. I made the best choices with the circumstances I was given. I did the best I could do. If I had to do it all over again, I can’t find where I would make any changes. Changing the outcome now would have meant deeply hurting, and perhaps causing the death of, my own family.

There’s no way in hell a piece of frickin’ real estate is worth that. No way, ever. If people are going to be so insensitive (and shallow) to not understand that, they probably aren’t people I want in my life anyway. They probably aren’t going to enrich or participate in anything constructive, or helpful. So they can go squat on their opinion.

But you know, it’s hard to remember all that. It’s a lot easier to focus on the ignorant, inexperience-borne negative pre-judgments I’ve had about foreclosure and business failure for most of my young life. Doesn’t seem to matter they’re not valid… those thought patterns are believable because they are comfortable, like old jeans, I’ve worn ‘em a long time. Which is not a good reason to keep ‘em. It’s a constant, constant struggle.

If it weren’t for that colossal junk weighing me down — which I think anyone would agree, is pretty major-sized — I think I’d probably be in pretty fair shape on the current meds. I just don’t see how meds can erase circumstances. I really believe stress and depression are not unusual responses considering the circumstances. This isn’t little stuff.

It is unfortunate we were blanketed in 10 inches of snow yesterday, impeding access to the dumpster (let alone the car)… then again maybe I am just looking for excuses not to clean, eh? ;) It’s not as if there aren’t 50 million other things to clean/do… ##

He has, as you might expect, accumulated quite a collection of breathtaking video and still photos.

He has also developed PTSD, and is “receiving treatment” for it. The news piece cited some heart-wrenching circumstances as being difficult for him — hearing people trapped and crying for help when he physically could not help them, for instance. Completely and totally understandable; that’d screw anybody in the head for a while.

What I find odd though, is that he keeps going back.

The first tenet of treating PTSD is to remove yourself from the source. You cannot make headway on it until you have removed yourself from the threat, and are safe.

This man has PTSD and yet he keeps going back. He keeps re-exposing himself to the threat, keeps re-exposing himself to more heartbreak, more risks. It just does not compute in my head. Granted the terminology in the piece was not perfect; I am sure that the choice of words “receiving treatment” is a journalist’s way of putting things. as one does not receive treatment for PTSD, one participates in or gets treatment. It’s not something you can be given, in a receiving sense, like a fine chocolate or a glass of wine. It’s something you have to roll up your sleeves and dig around in the muck bucket to find with your own two hands.

But I am stymied how this fellow can have PTSD, and yet turn right around and get right back in that car, and go out there, and stare down the source of his stress, and function. And presumably (although this may be where I am mistaken) come out the other side a sane and functional human being.

Then again, he did say that every chase changes him… every time he comes back from a chase, he comes back a changed person. Now on one hand, this seems reasonable. But on the other hand (the one that’s laying here tossing & turning in bed, chewing on this at O-dark:30) I am thinking, if he wasn’t screwed up in the head (PTSD) each chase wouldn’t have that profound of an impact on him. Just as each ambulance call left me a bit more appreciative, or sensitive, or compassionate, I would not have said (pre-PTSD) that every call left me a “changed person,” just that every call taught me something new, about life and about myself. But monumentally changed every time? No. I was more stable than that. Now (post-PTSD) does every call leave me a “changed person?” Yes, because I am that much more open to input. I’m operating with a much thinner skin, you could say.

Which leaves me with the conclusion that despite appearances, despite the off-handed way the PTSD was mentioned, addressed and then conveniently dropped, this is a man who is chasing sick. He is not alright. He is not his normal, pre-PTSD self running around out there, chasing untamed beasts. He is out there shooting video with one hand, while straining with all his might to carry a 150 lb. backpack labeled “PTSD.” It never leaves him. He’s not normal and he’s not healthy (not in the pre-PTSD sense). When he steps back out into the eye of a storm, he is dragging a ton of baggage that surely must be threatening to swallow him whole… or in little pieces… it’ll take him however it can get him. ;)

Where I am left quizzical is: Why? and, How?

Why on earth does he keep going back out there to taunt his emotional enemy? Why does he willingly go out, surely knowing that it is going to rip open and scald old wounds?

And how does repeatedly go out and face that source of trauma over and over again? What kind of coping strategies does he use that he is able to do that? — because a lot of PTSDers simply cannot face their trauma again. And especially not in roaring, screaming, living color. It is one thing to revisit a location when it is quiet, benign and safe … but it is another thing entirely to revisit when the threat is right smack dab there in your face.

Personally, you wouldn’t catch me doing it. I can’t do it. Right now, this moment. 18 months post-trauma, I hear LP gas smell calls get paged out, and I’m thinking, no – freakin’ – way. There is not enough rice noodles in all of China to make me go within a 1/2 mile of that crap now. Me and LP gas — not so much. The old LP did not get a Christmas card from me this year…………

Call it survival instinct, whatever. It’s an aversion, plain and simple. Not only do I feel the urge to run as fast and as hard away as I possibly can, but if I stay put for more than about 3-1/2 seconds, it is all I can do to not vomit. As in, actively clamp my esophagus down and not let the puke and bile spew out. A-ver-sion.

I know better than to judge Mr. Reed on the severity or seriousness of his PTSD. I have no doubt that he stuggles with it. Obviously his trauma is of the type that he is still able to function in the general scope of extreme weather conditions without flipping out. And/or, his brain (and therefore emotions) are of such a structure, interpretation and response that he is able to continue to function through whatever triggers and experiences he is going through … otherwise he wouldn’t still be out there doing what he is doing.

Lucky fellow.

Unlucky, perhaps, in that one has to wonder just how badly he is sacrificing himself for the ‘greater good,’ however he defines it. Time will only tell that one … not even he knows, right now, this day, this moment, whether it is an ultimate sacrifice or not. It’s something that has to play out, and no one can really predict it.

What really helped me about this piece was the realization that I am not the only one who is intimidated by, frightened of, and affected by, severe weather. I love a good snowstorm… I adore a downpour… but frankly, tornadoes shake the shit out of me. I didn’t like the first tornado I saw, and yet I continue to chase them out of some freakish obligation. Yet when I picture myself chasing on the plains as many do — or actually coming face-to-face with another tornado? I ask myself, do I really want to see that? The answer is, God No. Why would I subject myself to that? Why?

And I feel ashamed and embarrassed of that answer, because I have friends who think they are just the niftiest thing ever, and I really do want to be like them! I want to measure up to them, I want to have that in common with them.

But I don’t have that in common with them. I think tornadoes are scary, vicious, shitty things that hurt people and destroy beautiful things for no good reason. And they scare the bejeezus out of me.

Not quite as bad as LP, but close.

So yes, I very muchly understand how Jim Reed has PTSD. And I am supremely grateful for his admission of the fact, because it greatly validates what I feel and fear about severe weather. Yes, it is extremely cool, I understand that side of it too … but I have marveled in the past 18 months how chasers can be out there chasing, and not feel the fear and dread and loathing that creeps over my heart like a thick, heavy mat of mud… how are they so positive when there is so much negative? How does the preponderance of negative not smother the positive they seem to thrive on?

Maybe they aren’t thriving on positive. Maybe they are scared out of their wits and they are post-traumatic too … they just don’t talk about it.

It makes me wonder how many chasers have wound up post-traumatic … is it something they just don’t talk about? Do they get bitten and simply slip silently away? Or do they keep chasing and bite their lip, just not tell anyone about it?

At any rate, I am glad it is not “just me.” It is one more frontier where I do not feel quite so f*ed up. Obviously I am not alone on this one. ##