I Can't Thank You Enough - Pt. 1

Greetings to you, Dear Friends, Strangers and Otherwise. 

This being Thanksgiving Week, I’m going to dedicate this Blog Thing to a theme of Gratitude. 

I recognize that a habitual complaint of mine is geared toward my places of employment, past and present.  Because I fancy myself an artist, a free spirit, a seeker of spiritual matters, these various office jobs can really throw a monkey-wrench into what I feel is my natural way of being.   However, these jobs do serve a purpose.  Yes, yes – of course they are a means to earn money and support myself in the world - but more importantly – they supply a vast assortment of human interaction which leads to the introspection necessary in order to foster positive personal growth. 

So while these office jobs are mostly a giant pain in my ass, I will forever be grateful for my life’s path leading me to one job in particular.  For without that job, I would never have met Hiram. 

Back then, The H-man was a tender babe of 27.  I was a project manager’s assistant at a chaotic contracting firm.  A frenzied kinda joint.  I had heard that they were gonna be hiring a temp to handle some of the clerical overflow. 

Enter Hiram:  THE TEMP.   His very first day and there he is:  Strutting past my desk with such energetic ferocity that all of my papers blow up in the air.  I’ve been absorbed in a phone call and I look up just in time to catch part of his profile, then his back, and then he is WHOOSH  - careening down the corridor before vanishing into a supply room.  I can hear him cackling wildly to somebody in there.  Jeez.  Dude’s sure made himself right at home.

He is 4 years younger than me and the lad dresses with distinct self-awareness, the kind that screams MIRA, MIRA - LOOK AT ME!!    Office protocol be damned, he is resplendent in vests loudly adorned with colorful cartoon characters.  Silk neck-ties from the Warner Brothers Collection.  Tightest jeans you ever saw.  He owns at least 50 pairs of designer (and faux-designer) shoes and sneakers and twice as many jaunty hats, visors and caps.  Underneath these caps, his shimmering black hair bounces with his every step -  with each ecstatic hoot of  his incomparable laughter.

And there is LOTS of braying laughter coming from this boy.  When Hiram laughs he flings his head back and he throws his whole body into it.  When he finds something even mildly amusing (altho’ nothing is ever too MILD where he is concerned…) his mouth opens inconceivably wide and he shakes the fucking rafters with that laugh of his.  It’s a strangled war-cry, a groaning scream of pure joy.  He strives to make YOU laugh from HIS laugh alone, never mind what the hell he’s laughing AT.  I have never known anyone who loves to laugh the way Hiram does.  He also has the arrestingly tender eyes of a doe, or maybe a fawn.  They are large, almond-shaped and of the warmest chestnut brown, with lush lashes that I will forever covet. 

And he gets on my goddamn nerves.  Well, at first he does.  But it’s not really his fault.  I suppose I am short-tempered, as back then, my first marriage was completely fried.  It’s a case of two people having grown irreparably apart, but neither of us is addressing it properly and it’s been taking its toll on my nerves.  Big time.

So Hiram comes along just when I’m going thru a personal shit-storm on the home-front.   He sits right behind me and on bad days, I can be downright snotty to him.  Especially when I’m trying to be somewhat constructive on the job, haven’t slept well and he’s yelling in Spanish to his Mami on the telephone.   He calls his mother like 6 times a day, asking pertinent questions about the Latino soap operas that they both follow.  He also bursts into impromptu loud singing.  A lot of Madonna and  Frankie Goes To Hollywood. You know.  My favorites….

Sometimes I know I wound him with my crappy attitude.  But he brushes it off, won’t let me get him down.  He sings louder and takes to calling me Blanche.  He’s a huge old-movie buff and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE  (featuring Joan Crawford and Betty Davis) is one of his all-time favorites.  He says I make a perfect nasty cunt like Betty Davis when she’s victimizing the invalid, Blanche (Crawford).  So now whenever I give Hiram ‘tude, he makes big, round, bug-eyes at me and bellows both parts…

Crawford: “You wouldn’t be able to do these AWFUL things to me if I weren’t still in this chair!”

Davis: “BUT-CHA AAARE, BLANCHE!!!!  YA AAAAARE IN THAT CHAY-UHHH!!”

And no matter HOW shitty my day is going, there’s no way I can keep a straight face thru that.  Not possible. I dare anyone to try.

He is a most empathetic person, effortlessly attuned to others  moods.  When I am feeling down, he’ll glide by my desk and either give my neck an affectionate little squeeze or drop some hard candy on my computer keyboard as I type, blowing kisses in his wake, performing an overblown Diva-swagger that he knows will make me double over with the giggles.  

Hiram’s ‘office temp’ status is temporary in and of itself.  He is soon hired as a full-time employee.  His presence in the office, however flamboyantly distracting, has become a company requirement.  Especially for me.  He has sung, swaggered and charmed his way into my heart with a vengeance and now there is no turning back…

To be continued…

DOCTOR D.

“Passion-killers, ‘round ev’ry corner, watch out where you tread…

  You know there’s always gonna be some fucker wants to play around with your head.

I took control -  because I know

 That it’s not always what you think…

  And ya just gotta feel real lucky, now baby –

   If you find yourself a decent shrink.”

*  ~  Me ~ *

 * * * * * *

Yeah, so good ole’ Doctor D. was a real champ.  Turns out I DID get real lucky first time outta the gate and he WAS the shrink fer me!  I mean, hell – I even wrote a song in his honor!  Over the next two months or so, I made some real progress on the Anxiety Front and I’ll be damned if I coulda done so without Doc’s insights and support. 

Doc displayed an uncanny faculty in helping me draw my own conclusions as to where all my underlying anxiety was coming from.  These were not happy conclusions by any means.  Many were painful and shameful.  Long buried self-denial and the acknowledgment of avoiding vital responsibilities.  Fun stuff!  Good times!  But it’s all very necessary to confront if you’re serious about getting on with the healing process.

I realize that many people remain in therapy for years. (Just look at Woody Allen!) But I said good-bye to my beloved Doctor D. after about 8 visits.  He kinda even kicked me out….

We’re sitting companionably across from one another in his cave-shrink-room.  It is our last visit, but I don’t realize it yet.  A lot has happened since our very first appointment 8 weeks ago:  I’ve quit my job of 9 stagnant years and found another.  I’ve quit working in a ‘cover band’ (which I had grown to hate like poison) and was forming my first-ever original project featuring my own songs AND I’ve taken up meditation, yoga and begun exploring Middle-Eastern philosophy.  

And while I’ve had some tricky moments here and there, I have not suffered any more panic attacks since the moment that I met Doctor D.

Doc D.: “So!  You’re looking happy!”  He’s right.  We’re actually both smiling.

Me: “I am?  I didn’t realize.”

Doc. D.: “That’s the best kind of happy.  Effortless.  Natural.”

Me: “Well, I guess I’m excited.  I wrote another song this morning.  They’re coming fast lately.”

Doc. D.: “Wonderful!”  We look at each other, still smiling. “Anything on your mind today?”

Me: “Hmmm. I…wow!  I guess…I’m not sure?”

Doc. D.: “Any plans today?”

Me: “I have a band rehearsal later…”

Doc. D.: “Great.  And how’s that all going?  How’s the new band shaping up?”

Me: “Really good!  I’m loving it.”

Doc. D.: “And the new job?”

Me: “Well, it’s another office job, you know.  Nothing earth-shattering.  But I AM meeting some cool people that I’m liking alot.  Making new friends.”

Doctor D. is quiet, nodding and smiling thoughtfully.  Then:

Doc. D.: “Lynn, you don’t belong here anymore.” 

I guess I look a little stricken, or at least surprised.

Doc. D.: “Of course, if you really feel you need to see me, you’re welcome to. My door will always be open.  But from what you’ve shown me, I don’t think there’s anything else I can do for you.  You took the ball and you ran with it.  Just keep on keeping on like that and see where it takes you."

And as soon as he says it, I know he’s right.  But I feel a little choked up.

Me: “Should I leave now?”

Doc. D.: (chuckles) “Well, we still have about half an hour.  We could chat a bit yet.”

Me: “You’ve helped me so much.”

Doc. D.: “I’m glad.  But you did most of it, you have to know that.”

Me: “I’ll write a song about this someday.”

Doc. D.: “I bet you will.”

We’re quiet for a moment.  Then, out of the blue:

Me: “SO, who was the craziest person you ever had as a patient?”

He bursts out laughing and proceeds to tell me all about this insane, evil woman who scared the shit out of him with the horrible, sickening things she told him about herself at every appointment.  I beg him for the gory details, but he laughingly refuses.  It just wouldn’t be professional and besides, he wants me to leave his office with only GOOD thoughts in my head.

And then our time is up.  We stand and shake hands for our second and last time. 

Doctor D.: “GO!  Enjoy your LIFE.”

So I do.

* * * * * * *

PANIC - PT. 5

So, after my initial Adventures In Ruthless Panic,  I knew with utter certainty  it was imperative that I get some kind of professional help.  Everything about me – the person who I’d always thought myself to be – had changed.  I would have downright welcomed feeling like a shadow of my former self.   Instead, I felt like a shell, pod-person.  And THAT couldn’t be good.

Doctor D. is the first shrink I call.  He is fairly local and also accepts my insurance.  He tells me that a slot for the following day has just opened up.  I make the appointment straight away.  The next 24 hours feels like an eternity, I am that desperate.  As I drive to my very first psychotherapy appointment, my sense of purpose and determination thankfully over-ride any catastrophic anxiety.   But I also feel deadened and disconnected from the rest of the human race and the world in general. 

While I haven’t actually suffered another attack after my unsuccessful attempt to drive to work, I am acutely aware that my world has changed.   As I said earlier, there was now this omnipresent fear of having another attack clobber me at any time.  I no longer trust my body or my mind.  Both now seemed so capable of betraying me.  As far as my spirit is concerned, it has been dimmed and trampled. 

After filling out the requisite forms at the reception desk, it is a very short wait before Doctor D. appears.  Pleasant-looking man.  Perhaps 50 years old, full head of tousled, graying hair and a matching moustache.  Average height.  Casual dresser, khakis and a light sweater.  Honest eyes.  Could be anyone’s uncle.  Probably is somebody’s uncle.

With a polite smile, he shakes my hand and motions me into his little cave of a shrink-room.   Dark green carpeting.  A small lamp and a box of tissues on a little table.   I have the choice of using either a couch or a chair.  I choose the chair.  Doctor D. is serenely perusing my file.  Immobile, I feel frozen.  But for the first time in days, I also feel something else.  In this small, dimly-lit room, sitting across from this courteous yet unfamiliar man, I feel safe.

Then, he looks up and is regarding me openly.  Not objectionably.  He just has this frank way of looking me right in the face.   Seems to be evaluating me somehow, although it doesn’t seem like I’m giving him too much to go on.  I’m waiting for him to speak first and after a few moments, he does.

Doc D.: “So.  You’ve been having panic attacks.”

This is all it takes.  My face collapses in on itself.  I can’t remember ever crying like this.  It’s like I’m mourning the loss of a dearest of loved ones.  And actually, I suppose that I am:  I’m mourning for my own life.  I’m mourning for how it’s gotten away from me to such an extent that it has brought me here.  To Doctor D.

The crying continues for quite awhile.  Doctor D. pushes the box of tissues across the little table to me.  Endless water-works.  I’m not screaming or wailing or anything.  These are peculiar, quietly violent tears.  For most of that first meeting, I pretty much just sit there, my face in my hands, crying myself sick.  (But later I’ll realize that what I’m really doing is crying myself WELL.) 

Doctor D. remains quiet and courteous throughout.   When I dare to glance up at him thru my emotional outpouring, his expression is humane and compassionate, and not in the least bit perturbed.  This fills me with relief and a profound sense of comfort and it also brings my tears to a halt.   Now it’s my turn to say something.

Me:  “I’m afraid that I’m losing my mind.”

Doc D.: “Because of the panic attacks?”

Me: “Uh, well… yeah.”

Doc D. “You’re not losing your mind, Lynn.  I can just look at you and know you’re not losing your mind.  I know when people are losing their mind, so don’t you worry about that.”

His accent is old-school QUEENS and again, I feel my jangled nerves soothe. 

Me: “I just want these attacks to stop.”

Doc D.: “Sure, that’s why you’re here.  We’re gonna work on that.  We have to find out why you’ve started having them.”

Me: “I REALLY don’t want to take medications.  I don’t want to be a Prozac-babe or any of that shit…”

Doc D: (with a little laugh): “No, I don’t see you as a Prozac-babe, either.”

Me: “You don’t?”  (More relief. This has truly been a concern of mine from the get-go.)

Doc D.: “No.”

Me: “What do you see me as?”

Doc D.: “Oh, I see you more as a WE’LL FIGURE THIS THING OUT  babe.”  He looks at his watch. “Okay!  So, this went well.  See you next Tuesday, same time?”

Me: “We’re done?”

Doc D.: “For today we are.”  He stands up, and I follow suit, slightly dazed. 

Doc D. motions me to the door.  “Don’t worry.  You’re gonna be fine.”

Hmmmmm…..

OK, GO AHEAD AND PANIC - PT. 4

So there I was…waking up the morning after my double-whammy, extra-extra-special, ACTION-PACKED PANIC ATTACK DELUXE DAY!   I felt completely beat-up.  It was worse than having the worst hangover, because I hadn’t technically slept.  Rather, it had been a seemingly endless night of fitful half-dozes, wakes and starts. 

I was not really in my right mind as I set about my life as per usual.  But I dunno, I guess I thought that if I just carried on as tho’ nothing out of the ordinary had happened the day before that maybe…just maybe…everything would just return to normal (whatever that was). 

My then-husband had already left for work.  I took a deep breath and got out of bed.  Showered, dressed, had some coffee, tended my pets.  I kept telling myself that I felt fine.  A little worn out, but I was fine.   And especially once I got to work, I’d get into my daily routine and be just  fine.

Except I wasn’t fine. During my drive to work, I was about a block away from my office when the now sickeningly familiar tunnel-vision began to overtake me, along with the copter-whirring sound effects thrumming in my ears.  It occurs to me that this was the sound of my own blood coursing thru my veins, the sound of my heart palpitating out of control. 

Forced to pull over, I now sit parked directly next to a sprawling cemetery.  I catch sight of myself in the rearview mirror and I don’t recognize my own eyes, which are positively deranged with terror.  It takes awhile for me to stabilize enough in order to drive again, and when I do it is straight back home that I drive.  I make it, but it’s not a fun drive.  I curl up in a ball, in bed once more. This time, I sleep solidly for nearly 10 hours.

When I wake up, my answering machine is filled with messages from my job looking for me.  Also messages from my mom.  I call mom back just to let her know I’m still alive. Then I leave a voice-message at the shit-head office letting them know that I will be out for at least a week, taking some personal time.

Then I tear the house apart looking for my GHI health benefit pamphlets.  Got my work cut out for me:  I need to find me a shrink.  IMMEDIATELY.

                                    * * * * * *

DON'T PANIC - Pt. 3

For those of you who have also grappled with the complexities of acute anxiety, you already know that once you have experienced your first bona fide Panic Attack, a brand-spanking-new strain of panic is introduced into your life:  The Intense Panic at the Thought of Having Another Panic Attack.  It is truly a vast, unwanted and deranged Catch-22. 

Yeah, once you survive the initial ordeal, it starts to dawn on you that you still have a problem.  For me it didn’t take too long.  When they released me at the hospital, I shuffled out into the waiting area expecting to see either the man I was married to at the time, or perhaps a family member, or hey – I’d settle for my fucking DOG.  I mean, I WAS after all carted away from my place of employment, unconscious in an ambulance and all.  One would THINK that this fact might merit a bit of familial concern.  But no.  I’m standing there staring dumbly at room fulla complete strangers.  JUST GREAT.

My mind starts racing.  Didn’t my job CALL anybody to let them know I was in the HOSPITAL for CHRIST’S SAKE????  I could be DEAD right now, laying on a fucking SLAB, and my so-called LOVED ONES wouldn’t have a clue. 

My voice sounds far-off and vague as I ask a broad at the information desk where the nearest payphone is.  She directs me out into a deserted, echo-y hospital corridor. 

I am gripping a big metal payphone box for dear life with one hand, as I shakily rummage in my shoulder bag for coins.  Finally find some.  Try to reach my then-husband.  No answer.  I try my shit-head JOB,  but of course they’re fucking useless - gone for the day.  Finally, as a last resort, I call my parents.  By now my hands are trembling badly and I am terrified that I’m about to plunge right back into another attack.  

My mom answers the phone.  I don’t remember much of the conversation that I had with my mother, except her telling me: "Your husband should be there soon to get you.  First, he just wanted to go check and make sure the car was okay.”

See, I had driven our fairly new car to work.  It seems that the paramount concern here was to make sure that the car was okay, being that it was all alone – you know – parked at my job and all.  Lonely and vulnerable.  Poor car.

To be honest, at this point I felt such a current of hysteria building in me that it seemed like my head might blow apart.  I was practically speaking in tongues – it was all gibberish – I was shaking and scared because I was PANICKING AGAIN!!   IT  WAS  ALREADY  BACK. 

My mom can sense this, I guess, and she freaks out - puts my dad on the phone.  All I remember is my voice escalating uncontrollably.  I’m soon screaming and unable to stop - my voice resonating and bouncing off the walls of this long, dingy-sterile hallway: ’”O  MY  GOD ….I’M ALONE  HERE ….. WHY AM I ALONE HERE?? ….  WHY  the FUCK   AM   I   ALL   ALONE   HERE???”

This display draws the attention of a hospital attendant.  He comes up behind me and taps my arm, mid-scream. 

Dude: (calmly):  “Scuse me, Ma’am, but you can’t behave like that in here.  You’re being much too loud.”

Me: (Spinning around crazily) “WHAT?  WHAT?”  Dazed, I slam the phone down on my parents.  I look into the attendant’s eyes and mutter: “Oh, GOD.  I’m losing it.”

Dude (Completely unphased): “I’m sorry, but you need to leave.”

Me: “You’re telling me to LEAVE??  I WAS JUST A PATIENT  HERE!   THEY ONLY JUST RELEASED ME.”

He thinks about this for a second and then says: “Well, Ma’am…if yore released, then you’d best be gittin’ on yore way.”

Yup, it sure can be a cruel, cruel world.  So I wander outside.  Queens Boulevard.  Sure enough, there’s my then-husband marching up the entrance ramp.  Come to collect me.  He has no idea how to deal with me and I don’t know how to deal with myself.  We go home in silence and I curl up in a ball, but sleep does not come easy.  Every time I almost drift off, a part of me feels like it’s a loss of control – like I’ll drown.  I’m so scared of having another attack that I can’t allow myself to fall asleep.

Hopefully things will look different in the morning…

TO BE CONTINUED…

DON'T PANIC - Pt. 2

Well, hi there and how are y’all today?  Great, I hope!  Relaxed and lovin’ life!   Now kindly bear with me as my Heart-Wrenching, Chronic Anxiety Saga continues…

SO – I am plucked from my lackluster (with the exception of keeling over at my desk) workday, and I am transported to St. John’s Hospital.  I am thoroughly examined and then kept under observation for about an hour.    Once they have determined that it’s okay to release me, the attending physician  tells me that – yeah, it’s true - what I have just experienced is indeed a Panic Attack.  (Okay, swell - not dying…yet.)

 I feel woozy and shaky, like my legs will give out if I try to walk anywhere.  Guess the whole thing shook me up pretty bad.

I ask the youngish-lady-doc: “Will I get another one?”

Doc:  “Another attack?  Probably…”

Me (feeling about to faint all over again): “PROBABLY?  WHAT DO YOU MEAN PROBABLY??

Doc: “It’s just that…Once the anxiety cycle is activated and it manifests itself physically, it tends to...”

Me: “Yeah, okay, well…what if I don’t WANT another one?”

Doc: “Well, there are various medications you can try.  But they’re pretty powerful and you’re still kinda young.”  (I was 30.)  You may want to check into seeing a psycho-analyst first.”

Me: “Like a shrink?”

Doc: “Yes.  Not a psychiatrist, you know.   A psycho-therapist.  They prescribe different therapies, depending on the severity of your condition.  Shop around, see who accepts your insurance coverage and see what your options are.  Let me ask you – on a day-to-day basis, do you find yourself to be under a lot of stress?”

Hmmmmm.  Well now that ya mention it…maybe a little.  But it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly… Wait…”My CONDITION”???  Wow.  Guess I officially have a condition.

 I just shake my head at her.  I’m feeling wonky and just want to go home.

Now, if this thing woulda happened to me like, LAST WEEK, I suppose I would have immediately consulted THE INTERNET (where else?)  for research and guidance.  But this was 1992.  I don’t know if any of YOU had “internet” in 1992, but I sure as shit didn’t.   So instead, I tried to get a good night’s sleep and then I got in my car the next morning and began driving to work as usual…

To Be Continued…

WHATEVER Ya Do, DON'T PANIC

Nicknames are an interesting thing.  My nickname all thru high school was ‘Mellow’.  If you were to check out the farewell signatures in my graduation yearbook, everyone who signed it refers to me as  ‘Mizz Mellow’ – or - ‘Mellow-head’ -  or - ‘Mellow’ and most commonly, just plain ‘MEL’.    I suppose back in the day, I came across as the unperturbed type most of the time…

Which is kinda ironic because some years ago, I was diagnosed with Acute Anxiety Disorder.  You know: Panic Attacks.   Yeah, I’ve spent some significant time BOOGYIN’ DOWN  in the  FREAK-OUT- ZONE.    Mellow-No-More. 

The very act of living wears us down and it changes us, of that I have no doubt.  While chronic anxiety has become a very common thing and practically in fashion at this point in our cultural times, my first (and ultimately, worst) full-blown ATTACK was very scary indeed.  It gripped me, unawares, in the middle of the afternoon while I was at one of my beloved office jobs.  (The money was decent but boy, did I end up paying for it with my mental health.)

This particular occupation, I was managing a large import firm - an unchallenging, mind-numbing job that I truly detested.  But even worse, my frail, elderly boss had just taken on his son  - a failed schoolteacher – and dubbed him Vice President of the company.  And this son-asshole turns out to be a perverted, skeevoza weirdo that I instantly and positively despise. 

At any rate, it was the usual bullshit-ridden, otherwise unremarkable day at the office when out of the blue I begin to experience tunnel-vision and the office sounds around me morph into a helicopter-esque whirring/buzzing noise that drowns out all else.  I feel a * PING * that jolts my arms and my neck.  A single thought: I’m dying.

I faintly call out to the elderly bookkeeper lady who sits across the room from me.  Then I collapse in a heap right at my godforsaken desk and an ambulance comes to take me away. 

I start comin’ ‘round in the ambulance.  There’s two EMS workers riding with me, a man and a woman.  I hear them joking around with each other.  Groggy, I pipe in: “Am I having a heart attack?”  The gal says kindly: “No, no.  You’re gonna be fine.  It’s looking like it was only a panic attack.”

Huh???  I’m stymied.  Never had I heard of such a thing.  It sounded so harmless.  Panic Attack:  An image flashed in my mind of a little old man or woman, shaking their heads with worry, muttering: ‘Oy vey,  Oy vey – what do I do now?  What now??’  Certainly not the frightening episode I’d just been thru.  And it had transpired during a relative lull in my dreary workday, seemingly triggered by nothing. 

Ahhhh….But that’s how anxiety catches ya - with yer pants down, oh yeah.  And I was to find out a lot about this vexing phenomenon in the worrisome (however enlightening) weeks to come…

To be Continued….