It's different now than it used to be, and that's good. Right?

Since the last post lots of good and sad and even REALLY SAD things have happened.

I kept looking for work, even drove over 200 miles one day to take a test for getting post office jobs.

That day started good, I was doing dishes, when all of a sudden I remember about it, so I stopped, took everything out of the sink, then left.

While I was gone, Ellie came home and thought I had done nothing, and started to flip out.

She had called her dad, then when I called her she was completely pissed off.

I had to tell her and then prove to her that I this scheduled, then to also show her the text message date and time stamps that I had sent her just before I left.

Ellie was not happy that day still, but she realized she had nothing to really be mad at since I didn't just up and leave for no good reason'

It was shortly after that, when we had a stupid argument over our cat that she left.  She went to school with the Misses and then when they came home, she packed up a shit load of things and they left to her mom's house.

That night, Little Miss stayed with me, and I was glad.  It helped me feel better to have her here.

Now we're still married and reconciled.

BUT! I do want to conceded here, that I almost found out what the barrel of my gun tasted like.  That scared me a LOT.

However, during that few weeks, I spent a LOT of time looking at myself and writing down things and sending them to Ellie.

I started caring for myself and the house better.

Learning how to do yard work that I couldn't previously do.

In short, it was a wake up for me on a personal level, but it also woke me up to things about Ellie that are concerning.  She fights really bad anxiety.  She's VERY babied by her parents, mostly by her mom.

During the summer, while camping, she invited a small family close by to come over and roast marshmallows.  The little girl had never done it before.  After they left, Ellie and I went for a walk and she was really mad because the little family said they were going to come over again the next night so their daughter could do it again.  The child had never done it until that night.  So, Ellie was flipping out because she could not be alone with her family!  It's scary to think that, but it's true.

I did get a job as a driver, but I'm make about 1/4th of what I used to make.

There was a time there where I was signed up to work on the phone doing customer service.  A little bit into it, I realized their customers were all morons, and my own anxiety was getting to me and I was starting to use my pain meds to cope.  I also realized that they wanted me to help people who wanted to cancel their service stay with them.  That makes sense, but the way they did that was to offer them free stuff, then bill the hell out of them several months later for the new services and devices.  Fuck that.  So I left them, over my own moral convictions.  This was before the temporary split, so it did fuel that tension too.

It.'s all good now, but we had very little money, Ellie is a school teacher and we spent way too much money for her classroom supplies.  She also spent way too much money on these summer trips that were supposed to be paid for by the girls club...

This next year, employment for her will be up in the air too.  Her job is only for this school year and instead of teaching a dedicated grade still, she's now teaching specialized children.  Her pay goes up, but it also means we'll need to work on getting her additional college courses to get the special education endorsement.

In all honesty, I hate the education system and it's rife with hypocrysy

The LORD is on my side; I will not fear

Back in June 2016, I was laid off and my official last day was July 1, 2016.

When I found out, I was relieved and worried to some extent, as I believe I wrote here when it happened.

Since then, I had both knees successfully replaced, started receiving unemployment, and have been faithfully looking for another job.

I have only doubted and been angry with the Lord on a few occasions.  Mostly these were driven by pain and response to Ellie's anxiety directed towards me.

From the time I was laid off until now, I haven't really doubted that we would ever go hungry, be late on bills or have other problems.

Just before Christmas, I applied for a job that I received as an email alert through a popular job site.  The next day, I received a phone call asking if I was available for an interview.  I said yes, and I was told it may happen that afternoon!

The interview wound up taking place after Christmas.  The official job offer was pretty close to what I was making.  About $7k short of what I was making, which was a LOT of money.  This still, is a LOT of money.

Due to the nature of the job, I needed to get government/military security clearance.  All of the initial paperwork took me an entire day+ to fill out, sign, fax, scan and email back to my new employer for preparing the clearance process.

The usual drug screening required for this took place, and I had to provide pictures of my Rx bottle(s) to validate some of the pain medications in my system.

Everything there cleared.

Then I had to fill out MORE paperwork, and then go through another security clearance process to get it directly authorized by the agency I am going to work for.

Again, everything there cleared.

I start work this week at home filling out forms.  Due to MLK day, I will work on location on Tuesday.

While many others were worried that I wasn't going to find employment, I wasn't fearful.

I was worried and concerned, but I wasn't afraid.

My biggest concern was that I might need to apply for disability sooner than later, because my medication might cause some employers to forgo the validation process.

Going even further with the latency of employment, many of the employers I met with either didn't want to meet my desired salary range, didn't like that I wasn't as "certified" JAVA developer (The language is a C language and it's damn easy to read... so WTF?)....

AND...

I ran into an old coworker that I trained many years earlier, who told me that he had been laid off as had another large group of people too.

Our local market place is flooded by people in my industry.

My new job isn't in software development, however, it is in a technical support type of role....

BUT...

It's the organization that I am contracted to work with that makes me proud to accept the lower pay... which is actually higher than the pay I was willing to accept.

It should be good!

Being unemployed is a lot of work..

I never wanted to use social media.  I still feel that it exposes you to the world, and then you need to watch what you post and what other people post about you.

Previous to being unemployed, I was almost completely missing, even though I've had a huge presence through my coding and technical documents I wrote for my employer.

Since my name was never published with my technical articles or my applications and utilities, I really don't have any proof for new employers of what I've done.

The source code I wrote for those utilities belongs to my last employer, so I cannot even share it or possibly even use it with a new employer.

So, what do I have to show for my work?

"Hey, I have written lots of technical docs, busted out hundreds of thousands of lines of code... but I can't prove it aside from just saying it."

Kinda fucked up when you're working with the intellectual rights between employers.

Going back to all the work, I spent many hours setting up a Facebook account ot use for promoting my books & stories.

It turned more into a shit fest of: "Oh, look there's my brother... oh look there's my little boy... oh look there's...  Oh, that picture is Awesome!  45 people "liked" your photo(s)..."

So WTF?

Why do I need to be notified that someone liked a picture of my bare ass?

I mean seriously?

Who cares?

I updated my profile photo with a picture taken 5 years ago, and everyone is like, "Wow, that's a great photo.".... and all I want to say is... "yeah it is... All of you have copies of it from the same damn family reunion we were all at!"

Then there's my mom... "I need you to call me..."  "That's a great photo of my "little boy""... Holy shit!  WTF would someone post shit like that to a site where most of that shit is public?


I should post something like, "here's the damn bitchy lady who used to yell at me about how poor my fucking grades were"  OR "Thanks for yelling at us kids for not putting the fucking lights on the Christmas trees correctly, when you wouldn't do it or even show us WTF you wanted done!"  OR  "WTF didn't you get an idea that I was depressed and my grades were bad about it.... Why couldn't you try and help me, instead of yelling at me!?"

Now, enough with bitching about Facebook and the idiots who use it.

Getting back to working hard being unemployed.

I setup a LinkedIn account, and spent several days filling in the various parts of the forms, and employers, and work experience, and projects I worked on, and then "connecting" with all the people I worked with over the years.

Now, the people I connected with are those that I trust.  There are shit loads of others from my last employer that I really, REALLY don't want to be associated with.

Hell most of the people aside from those I actually like are complete assholes!

Some of them are idiots and can't pour water from a boot with instructions on its heel.

A lot of them are heavy drinkers and drug users...  Yet, since this employer didn't do any drug screening, nothing was found, even though they were pretty damn fucked up sometimes.

So, getting back to LinkedIn (again), I think that I am now publicly visible through Google searches... Whoopie fucking deal.

Actually, I did several searches on my first & last name, then first name, middle initial, last name.

I found only "public" phone records, and a reference to my Facebook profile.

Otherwise, I am going to be confused with LOTS of other people with the same name, including several sports stars.

In short, it seems like a lot of fucking work for almost nothing...

Except that I had a great phone interview for an IT position, where the interviewer said she wants to meet with me and their other IT people for a formal interview.

w00t!?

I need the job... but I'm not sure how excited I am yet..

At least today I'm not feeling very excited.

I haven't been sleeping good for a variety of things.. one might be the pain in my legs still... (duh)  Another would be heavy caffeine use from not sleeping... (duh, again)  another could be the drop in pain medication.

The pain I have is being controlled almost completely with Acetaminophen these days instead of the opiods I had been taking.

It's a great thing to be off of them, for the most part... but it's also a possible reason why I'm not sleeping good.. it's allowing the pain to hit me harder at night, when the small doses I took through the day have worn off.

Right now, I am taken less than 1/8th of what I was taking three weeks ago.  In fact, I'm taking less than 1/2 of what I was using last week.

Hell, I'm not even using the muscle relaxers on any sort of regular basis.  I took some last night because I hurt my back on Saturday... and to hope they'd help put me to sleep... (HA!)

I did manage to sleep 4 hours last night, and if it continues with caffeine use the rest of the week... can anyone say... "Welcome to the Himalayas?"  I mean... "Welcome to a good old mania time?"

Oh fucking well.

Time to work... I suppose.

Before my first knee replacement, I tried to apply for state unemployment and I was denied because, "I couldn't work".

I complained that it was discrimination, but the chick on the phone seemed shocked that I would even dare mention that.  I had to say that because I was being denied because I wasn't able to work due to my disability and inability to work due to my arthritis and upcoming knee replacements.

Over the last week, I've been starting to work with my last employer's unemployment agency to look for work.

This week, I'm working on trying to get my state unemployment insurance payments going again.

Although, I am not sure WTF is going to happen.

I also need to work on getting an idea of what employers are where that can pay me close to what I need to keep my family and I living.

My last pay was about $83,000/year (~$41.00/hour).

I think we can survive on $50,000/year.  If I could find a job here in our little city for about that much, then I could probably walk to work most of the time.

I really, really would love being able to walk to work, instead of relying on a car.

Hell, maybe even riding my bike.

Well, I am about to dive into state unemployment website and bureaucracy now.

Wish me luck!

I saw it coming... It still doesn't mean it's not FUBAR.

I don't know if I previously posted my thoughts about wanting to retire and actually hoping it happened, in some sort of secret, good way.

I didn't actually retire, but I was retired, if you will.

My employment with my company after almost a full 20 years has been ended.  I didn't do anything to warrant getting laid off, except I think I did... sort of.

I was laid off as part of a reduction in force, which is better than just getting fired.

It means that I was laid off with approx 6 months of pay and benefits, and they had to cash out all of the paid time off I accrued.

Now, I wasn't trying to get laid off on purpose, but I wasn't trying as hard as I might have been able to.  Although, I was trying damn hard to keep my job.

I dunno, it's hard to say.

With sleeping problems due to bipolar and arthritis that was #1 against me working really well.  Then #2 the heavy use of opiod pain killers.  I'm not addicted to them, wherein I'm not taking them for any sort of  a buzz or high.  I need them physically due to the pain.

I know when I no longer need them for pain, I'm going to have emotional problems weaning away from them, because of all the years that I've been taking them.

Then again I might not.

So here's the skinny of the work situation:

• I was not trying to get laid off on purpose.
• I was having problems working due to pain & bipolar sleep patterns.
• Emotionally, I was cracking because of the problems with sleep, etc.
• I needed to get away and take a break from things and taking vacation time wasn't going to be enough.
• Knee replacement was a HUGE deal with me.  (See sleep & emotional notes above.)
• If there was going to be a reduction in force, I was considering telling my manager to put me on the list...

See, I didn't want to be laid off, but I wasn't going to discourage it if it came to it.

When it comes to a business decision, it was what I was expecting.

I'd seen this same behavior before from this employer.

Their budget is too high and they need to reduce, this is how they do it:

1. They look at the top level/higher paid groups.
2. If they see that they have "too many" individuals that are on a team, they skim them off.
3. Managers are more expendable than grunts.
4. IT and other infrastructure staff are expendable.
5. By cutting higher level managers/staff, more grunt positions can be saved and customer facing work doesn't "change".

Well, I was a developer for a Tech Support tool, and they saw "too many" in the USA that were employed.

As a developer though, once you come up with a working concept and the infrastructure is in place, they can outsource your code and project to India and can your ass.

In truth, I was glad to get laid off, and I'm not worried about the future in any sort of sense.  I'm at peace with things and I expect to pick up the pieces and keep going.

Well...

I suppose that there is to say about the work situation.

My first knee surgery is coming up next week.

I'm excited to get it fixed...

but I'm also a bit anxious... I want it to be successful... Not the recovery, but the whole procedure, where they put me to sleep and then the cutting/shaping.

OK, it's not the cutting.  It's just the scenario that I might not wake up.

I don't want to leave my family yet.

I love them.

"I'm bored", Francis said, "Let's steal a car"

That line is from one of my new favorite quirky songs, Old Friends by Ylvis. (

https://youtu.be/D2NtlTFQznA)

 

If you haven't seen the video, take time to watch it.

You'll either laugh at it, or stand aghast.

I'm not going to do anything in that video...

I'm just bored.

I can work, but I want someone to talk to.

It's hard for Ellie to understand it sometimes.

Recently, Ellie wants me to perform like I did when I was in my 20s.

Well, things just don't work like anymore.

I am thinking more and more about just moving all my work hardware back to the fucking corporate site and driving there day or night whenever I need to work.

For the past 7 years, I've worked at home 99.9999% of the time.

It's gotten old, and I want my office & desk back.

I really don't like coming in here after I'm done working.

It kind of defeats the need for my office or desire to do anything with my other hobbies.

Since I was put on Zyprexa, I'm now very fucking tired for half of the day, until it wears off.

Working from home makes this hard to deal with.

Ellie will basically ride my ass until I'm out of bed.

She doesn't say anything, but instead, makes the bed while I'm still in it.

When she does this, she isn't really considerate about it.

She flips the blankets all over, turns on the fucking overhead light fairly bright everytime.

Whenever I worked at the corporate office, I usually showered and dressed in as low of light as I could.  That way she could sleep longer.

These days, it seems that she's just not being considerate or compassionate towards me or others.

Hell, I don't know if she's even nice in the classroom with the special need kids these days.


I love her, and I think that she's getting burned out from working.

One or more of the children in their classroom has been much more needy these days.

Ellie's not the teacher for the classroom, so I don't know if she's being assigned to work with the kid(s), or if she's volunteering.

Now Ellie will usually volunteer and try to fix and patch things up.

That's why she's started spending a lot of time at Sally's house.

Sally and her husband are hoarders.

There's so much shit in their house, that they were given new kitchen cabinets and they might not be installed.

I remember seeing the new cabinets in their kitchen years ago.  I couldn't help them do it at the time, and I'm not sure if anyone else I know with skills helped them.

Ellie and the Misses spend 4+ hours the Friday of Memorial Day weekend and brought down an old couch and shit loads of other trash & junk.

That was only from ONE room in their upstairs.

They also have several other rooms and attic spaces crammed full of junk!

We know when Ellie has finished helping them clean up everything, that the hoarding will go back to usual.

See, the reason why Ellie is helping them, is that Sally & Husband need to get a loan to get their electrical system update.

The house is so messed up, it should be condemned.

Plumbing in there is old and messed up, walls have mold, attics are full of old mattresses & rags, etc, that there are probably mice, opossums, etc living in them, and their electrical wiring is FUBAR.

But...

Sally's husband inherited the house that was all paid off.

All Sally & Husband need to do is maintain insurance and Taxes for the property.

They both have mental health issues.

Sally is one of those "bat shit fucking crazy" Bipolar people.  Ok, she's not completely crazy, but she's definitely not firing on all cylinders.

Her husband has... I don't know, nor do they really have a 100% idea of what's wrong.

I think it's crazy shaken (not stirred) cocktail of schizophrenia, ADHD, and depression.

For me though, I am bored because I just want someone to chat with.

Ellie was sick over the weekend, and whenever I felt the possible urge to be intimate with her, I refrained from trying to get worked up.

The rest of the time Ellie wants to do it, it's really late at night, I'm tired as hell from the Zyprexa side affect...

That and I'm not feeling very close to her, because we just don't spend time with each other.

Last week, she put on a movie in the front room to watch it, instead of hinting that spend time in the bedroom.

Even if we don't do the humpy-dumpy, it's nice to just spend time interacting with each other.  Like playing cribbage or backgammon or even just chatting about stuff we did or want to do.

I love Ellie and several months ago we were really going at it, I felt so much closer to her than I do now.

Just seems that I can't get her to slow down and spend time with me.

I've bitched, moaned and ranted enough time.

Keep your stick on the ice.

I think it's going to happen sooner than I expect.

More and more recently, it's been feeling like it's going to happen.

What's going to happen you say?

My desire to keep working for my employer is waning really bad.

Yesterday I was working "OK", I guess.

But, I really haven't been working full speed for almost a year now.

What I mean by full speed is that... well..

Hell, it's hard to say.

Maybe I can compare it to driving a car.

For me, full speed is over 100 MPH.

While half is closer to 60 MPH.

The past year, I've been averaging about 5-20 MPH.

It really sucks.

I don't know what to do, or where to go.

It think I'm going to start applying for SSI, Disability soon, then to wind up retiring while I continue to write and attempt to publish my books, stories and poetry.

I'm afraid, and I don't know where to turn.

I'm afraid it's too late to stop things...

Follow up from my major melt down a few weeks ago.

It took me a while to really get calmed down, but it happened.

The week or two, I've actually been working!

I know, right? *grunt*
Big miss and one of her friends a few years back said that phrase ALL the time.

This is helpful.

Well, I still fought with this HR chick.

The bossman got on me about getting the forms all filled out.

About the same time as the meltdown, I dusted off the All-In-One Printer/Scanner/Copier/Fax/Cappuccino/Julian Fries machine.

I printed out all the forms needed for the disability request/accommodation and faxed them to the Orge (Shrink), and my PCP.

That Monday after my melt down, the Ogre had an appointment for me to visit him.  He told me to take Zyprexa, which I still haven't done yet.  He also filled out the forms based on our discussion about the questions on the forms.

Those questions on the forms are VERY vague for mental health disabilities.

Actually it's the same form for ALL disabilities.

Last week, I faxed the form from the Ogre to HR the day after he filled it in.

Then I called my PCP and they said they'd get it done.

Turns out, that the FAX # on their site is the wrong one for the Doctor.

I refaxed the document.

Yesterday, they had it ready.

Then, of course, I faxed the forms to HR.

The forms from the PCP said that the need to work from home would is dependent on reducing the pain on my knees.

AKA, if the knees are replaced and therapy is successful, and I'm on MUCH lower or no regular usage of pain killers, then I could work from the Office again.

Which is what I've been hoping for these past 3 years or so.

I had a really, really time sleeping this week so far, and I'm starting to doze off really badly.

I'm going to call this post done and keep trying to work for a few more house.

Manual Entry - Monday, December 4, 2012

I found two more entries in a small journal that I had started using for keeping track of my story/poetry ideas.

Awoke at 2:30, laid in bed and attempted to sleep again until 3:30.

Got into tub of hot water and took a good bath.  Shaved face.

After getting report code adjusted, found some anomalies in the logic due to changes in the data captured.  I need to re-adjust the query for data so that processes without a true binary running.

Elder's quorum pres. stopped by.  Good chatting with them.

I think I have a kidney stone...

My pecker was hurting really badly.

I'll have to settle for a snowball because the consistency of shit varies too much.

At the time where my surgery was canceled, I was communicating with the short term disability company and HR.

When it was cancelled, I told them to cancel things and that I'd deal with the pain until the doctors could fix it.

Well, the HR chick got a bug up her ass about the "pain", and in her effort to "help" me, she actually made things worse.

On Friday, she asked that I call.

During the call, she started into how I should fill out this form, and that form, etc.

Then she started asking for more information that I really shouldn't have given her.

It really, really felt like a fucking ambush.

Today, I really, really regret talking to her.

I told her this in an email today.

She replied and asked if she should transfer this to another person.

DO YOU THINK?

Shit.

Then I sent her a reply that the email started out cancelling the Short Term Disability, and turned into a huge mess.

My anxiety already pretty high and my emotions are really fucked up.

Hell, a few hours ago, I left a message with my shrink about the possible need to start on antidepressants again.

I asked for Zoloft, because I know that doesn't fuck me up too much.

It's been over an hour since I sent the reply and she hasn't replied yet.

I think I'm just going to ignore her for a while and see what happens.

Perhaps this chick will just drop it.

Because I really don't know how much longer I can endure this stress.

I hate being bipolar!

Being bipolar and successful is not for pussies.

Right now, I don't know how I'm surviving like I haven't been.

I am or was a successful software developer.

Seriously.

What I have going on right now, is scaring me again.

I don't honestly know where to go or what to do.

On Thursday, I spoke with a gal in HR, since she was concerned with my pain.

She pushed at me pretty hard about my working arrangements.

I'm worried by the way she was acting/talking to me.

Remember, I work from home for MANY reasons.

These days the #1 reason is because of the pain and associated lack of sleep from my arthritic knees.

The other reasons are also associated from the knees.

Should I be driving because of my pain medication intake?

Stereotypically, no.

Doctors and law enforcement don't want people driving who are under the influence of pain medication.

I'm worried and scared.

Yesterday, Ellie fed my anxiety and depression, without meaning to.

She started the conversation with, "I need to talk to you about something."

Her sister, who works at the hospital, told her in a very, very helpful way that the Surgeon we were going to see might only perform surgeries at a hospital that my insurance might not 100% cover.  That perhaps, we should call and see if this is true, then to reschedule with another surgeon who does.

After hearing it, I was very upset and almost started to cry.

So I got upset and got ready to leave.

I actually needed to go shopping to get a few things for dinner.

At the store, I really really just wanted to buy lots of food and junk to feed my anger and depression.

No wonder so many of us with mental health issues are fat fuckers.

Even today I'm worried and scared.

I know taking Xanax can help, but then I'm drowsy as all fuck.

Then it's even harder to work.

Working is a big problem for me these days again.

I just can't always seem to work.

Today, I also have an appointment with my doctor for my quarterly pain medication refills.

I invited Ellie along, and now I don't think I wan her there.

I really want to ask the doctor for something to help me focus on work.

I'm really having a hard time focusing.

Even when I take caffeine, sugar, etc. to try and boost my alertness, I can't seem to work.

These days, I'm thinning out, but it's also because it's driven by emotions.

Well, I'm off to try and work some more...

This was my first time, and I'm nervous...

On Friday, I returned my old corporate laptop after I wiped the disk with a DOD standard wipe.

I went into the foyer and asked the receptionist to see if one of the "IT" guys would come down and pick it up, because I couldn't walk very well.

Without going into great detail, she essentially embarrassed me and forced me to walk part way down to deliver this laptop.

I'm pretty pissed and upset about this.

Today was the first time that I've ever submitted a harassment complaint through my manager to HR.

The boss said I should've gone to HR directly, but since I got him involved he had to take action and asked me to email summary.

I did this, and now I'm not sure WTF will happen.

I know this person didn't do it on purpose...

but dammit...

Why should all of my disability circumstance information be given to a security guard?

Why wouldn't this person offer to just have me sit...

Instead, she started giving me a bit of crap because I wanted to sit down on a chair with arms, instead of a couch where the arms are too far apart for me to use...

Wish me luck...

I guess.

Manual Entry - Monday, May 7, 2012

Dr. Bxxxx ordered that the Seroquel be stopped.  Gave me some Xanax for the pain/anxiety.

I know that I didn't sleep well that night either.  My legs & head hurt and the Xanax didn't put me to sleep.  I slept for 3-4 hours before getting up and starting work.

We saw Dr. Txxxx on the 3rd.  He really only seemed to think that I was depressed after talking to Ellie.

He didn't think much of the Xanax from Dr. Bxxxx, but it did help calm me down.  I don't use it much though.

Ellie and the girls left Friday afternoon for their trip.

My Uncle and I watched "War Horse" and I stayed up watching a "House M.D." dvd.

Dr. Txxxxput me on Venlafaxine ER, 75mg.  1 for 3 days then 3 every day/morn.

Weekend w/o Ellie & girls was good.  Except that I didn't sleep well Friday night.

Actually, here's what happened Friday:

I got up by 5:30 AM & started work.

I also started process of backing up Ellie's H.D.

I worked till around 9:00AM and felt so tired and didn't really do anything that I went back to bed and slept till 1-3PM.

That night after hours of TV, I couldn't sleep, so I went to work and really got a lot done.

I stopped @ 3:00AM Sat. morn.

Sat. I got up around 8:30AM, cleaned the garage a bit, put up another shelf and organized the tumbler grit.

I also sorted out the tire weights from the local tire company, I got for making bullets.

While doing it I got an idea how to mount my banjo & resonator.

I bought screws for it then felt really tired and took a nap.

When I got up, I started thinking about the banjo and changed my mind again and bought some different screws.

I worked on the banjo till it was done and went to bed around 9:00PM.

Today, Monday, I felt kind of on edge.  Not fight or flight or nervous.

Rather, I felt on the verge of crying off and on all day.

I don't know why.

Maybe this Venlafaxine ER. wasn't working yet.

I got a lot of work done, caught up on my documentation for work, despite this problem.

Maybe I should use the Xanax?

For now, I will practice my banjo and rest.

I feel the need to apologize to almost everyone and to hug people.

Even my coworkers.

I don't know why.

Manual Entry - Monday, April 30, 2012

A lot has happened since the last entry.

My eyes are still kind of messed up, but are getting better it seems.  I stopped Cymbalta and started into a hypo-manic episode that really kicked off the 23rd.

From waking up Monday through Tuesday around 1:30 Tuesday, I did not sleep.

I did work, from 12:00AM-6:30AM.  Afterwords, I laid in bed, watched "Young Guns."  Read some books, did a few crosswords and finally took a benadryl and slept for about 3-4 hours.

Tuesday night it happened again, instead of 12:00AM, I started at 11:00PM.  Worked till 5:00AM or so.

While I was working, I was working hard.  Really hard.  Best that I could describe it is as though I was the character "Neo" from "The Matrix", when he realized he could see the code and the make up of everything around him.  I too got to a point where the code base & framework that was new to me all made sense.

Weds. morn, after work, I took another benadryl and slept till 3:30PM.

I want to step back a bit, and mention that I started to step back into my mood/nasty state.  Ellie and I agreed I needed a change.  Dr. Bxxx upped the Gabapentin to 1 capsule twice a day.  That was on Tuesday, I think.

Weds. night, I took half an Ambien and waited till close to 1:00 AM before I went out.

Thursday, I awoke OK, got a lot of work done.  Noticed that I felt like I was enraged, but I didn't have a cause.  I talked Cliff's ear off to/from our banjo class.  Not normal talking, but high speed communications.

Since the increase of Gabapentin, I've been waking up early morning, taking a piss & then all but collapsing in bed to sleep again.

Friday morning wasn't much different except I awoke around 1:30AM.

While pissing, my knees buckled.  Yes, I was standing and my knees rammed into the sides of the bowl and I collapsed all the way down and laid on my back.

I didn't think that I made much noise, but it got Ellie up.  I don't even remember if I finished peeing or not, or if it just ran all over the floor.

Ellie managed to help me to bed.  All I wanted to do was sleep.  Ellie wanted me to go to the E.R.

I refused, since all I wanted was to sleep.

After a lot of moaning by me and arguing by Ellie, I had her take my B.P.  It was very low. 84/52.

At that point, I consented to let Ellie call 911.

The E.M.T. measured by BP too and it was already a bit higher.

Since we paid for Fire-Med, I consented for them to take me to the E.R.

Before leaving the curb, they installed an I.V. line & did an EKG.

While at the E.R.:

• I slept a bit.
• Swore/cusses/etc
• Managed to stand & pee again.
• With more swearing, because Ellie was too aggressive with the urinal
•  Let them do an EKG, with the more precise machines.

In short, I could've stayed at home and slept really well and not cussed much more.

Once more, I need to interject a missing tidbit here.

Thursday morning, I got a call in response to a message I left with Dr. Bxxxx on Weds.  They suggested & urged me to see a Dr. that day (Thursday).

I saw Dr. Pxxxx, not the one I thought he was, but his brother.

I hashed out what was happening about insomnia, anger/rage, migraines, arthritis, that the brain/head MRI & blood tests were all normal.

SO WTF?

I cussed in front of him, I told him that I was really tired and that my dad was diagnosed as bipolar and I remembered some of his mood swings.

I further explained that I found a woman's bipolar video/youtube Blog and before I really knew it, I watched everyone of her videos and felt connected.

Dr. Pxxxx had been researching on his iPhone and said he agreed with me.  He gave me samples of Seroquel.

Told me to keep taking the Gabapentin and take 2 Seroquel a ngiht.

So I did, and now, you have the full insight of what happened before my knees buckled and I fell to the floor.

The rest... WAIT!  One more item!  I used a few 10mg oxycodone pills Thursday and the last one was around 7:00PM.

The rest of the weekend, I pretty much did nothing else but slept.  I did go to church on Sunday and stood when my name was called, to accept a calling as a Ward missionary.  I didn't stay to be set apart, because I was tired and not feeling well.

I pulled out the banjo and sat practicing outside in the shade of the apple trees on the garden swing.

It was refreshing and the warm sun, combined with the cool breeze felt akin to heaven.

I took the Seroquel meds, fell asleep a bit after.

Monday I awoke earlier than anticipated, 7:30AM.

I started work around 8:00AM, but couldn't get into it until around 1:00PM.

We got a call from the Dr., about the E.R. visit, and Ellie & I will see him Tuesday morn.

Maybe things are finally working out.  I need to tell the Dr. that I haven't had an Allergy shot since, January.

Manual Entry - Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Thursday afternoon, Ellie called the family Dr. and told him about my problems and that I had mentioned taking myself out.

I was still feeling like I was in a fight or flight mode then.

Ellie told him about this and we made an appointment early the next day.

At the appointment, we all agreed that Cymbalta wasn't working well.  The prior day, Weds. I left a message that I felt I was losing my mind and that I didn't want to ER, on this Dr.'s voice message.  The Dr. took most the appointment to explain about the med & apologize even though he never said it.  I could feel he was trying to apologize without saying it out right or maybe he seemed to be begging for forgiveness.

Thursday night, I still attended the banjo class, and part way through, I got a severe urge to leave and I was starting to heat up.  I managed to hang on and enjoyed the class.

I seem to be all over today, but a lot has happened since my last entry.

To sum up the Dr. Appt, the Dr. dropped my Cymbalta dose to 30mg and started me on Gabapentin.  One 300mg capsule at night.

I saw around the day on Friday, and didn't work at all, but I did stitch up a couple of bags out of rabbit fur.  I wanted one to store my finger picks in.

Saturday I felt better but not 100% yet.

I helped Ellie load and unload our trailer with sawdust 6 times.  During this I took a small break to help the missionaries out.

The missionaries' teaching appointment turned out to be a no show though.

Sunday, I was feeling much better and went to church.  Told the Bishop that I'd take the calling to be a Ward Missionary.

Monday, I was working pretty well and got more work done that day than I had in weeks.

Today, I got even more done and for the most part felt pretty darn good.

I haven't showered yet, but that was so that I could start work early today to finish what I started Monday.

The module I had been working on, is all wrapped up except for the data views to be used by Tech Support.

During this time, my head has hurt and I've taken pain meds, but the constant feeling of shit & being fucked up is almost gone now.

-- call and setup appt with Dr. T(asshole shrink)

I hate this shit at work...

Several months ago, I was asked to go through one of our support tool's product reports/settings/etc..

As part of this examination and fix time, I have been finding LOTS of really bad coding practices, false positives and just general SHIT.

The boss has been asking what I've been doing and it's been hard to show him what I've been fixing because he doesn't understand or want to understand what I've been doing.

All because of the shit someone else wrote.

I've rewritten almost ALL of these reports.

Several of them had false positives.

Most of them were just useless and not verbose enough to indicate WTF was going on.

One of the things I've been doing recently is combining several reports into single ones because they're all related to each other.


It's getting to be a real LOAD of shit to fix.

I've been going through and spending hours and hours debugging and testing shit that I shouldn't have to!

I'm relying on someone else's code who have already done their QA process to, so that I don't have to.

Fucking A!

It's getting tiring.

I'm spending 10+ hours recently just to get these damn things done, only to find problems that I have to spend several more ours debugging, instead of just "Fixing" these damn reports.

I have to fix the fucking reports, and fix the back end code that my reports ride on.

Recently I've been writing and documenting defects that have been causing the existing reports to be false positives and generally just shit.

I'm getting tired of this shit!

I'm falling behind because of this shit.

Manual Entry - Monday, April 9, 2012

Last wee I had an appointment with Dr. (Primary Dr at the time)  We changed the pain med from percocet to pure oxycodone in case of problems where I need more relief w/o problems from Tylenol.

He had results from the MRI of the day before and the results of all blood tests.  Nothing wrong, everything looked good to which I could only answer "Fuck!"

I didn't show it, but I wanted to hit or kick something though.

I also met with (counselor) on the same day and expressed that I was getting to a point that I felt that I was going insane.  She looked a bit shocked when I told her I hadn't showered or bathed for almost four days when I took a bath the night before the appointments.

It's not that I don't want to be clean, it's just that it feels like I am out of time to do it, with how late I get up and how I don't always sleep well.

Ellie tries to make certain that I shower every other day or so.  It seems like a chore some days.

Since Dr. (primary) increased the Cymbalta to 2 pills a day, I've felt a lot better, but I still have a hard time focusing & completing work.

If I get engaged by a coworker or manager, I tend to enliven a bit and work a bit better for a while, then it's back to my zombie like state of existence.

Today, I found that I had been awarded a $1000 gift award because I put together a really crazy piece of code that most people thought was impossible.

Right now I should feel pretty good, but I feel really irritated like I just want to be angry and spend the rest of the night cussing.

Today, I got more work done and found an exception I need to track down, but wasn't able to work on it because of distractions & backup has started.

I need to start practicing my chord finger positions on my banjo for class.

I almost have the forward roll pattern worked out to where it's almost automatic now - AKA - muscle memory of the fingers.

My body is tired, but I know I won't be able to sleep well tonight.  Currently my heart is racing a little bit again, although I don't know why.  I didn't use too much caffeine today, only 600 mg (3 No-Doze).

When I have trouble staying awake or sometimes a headache that won't go away or trouble focusing, I'll use caffeine.  Today, it was that I couldn't focus at first, then I got really tired around mid-day.

Why doesn't she trust/believe me!?

A few weeks ago, I noted where my boss flipped out because I didn't make it to a meeting on time, and also flipped out on ALL the rest of us.

I told Ellie about this, thinking she would agree that he was acting like a whiny baby...

BUT...

She flipped out and started lecturing me about how I am in trouble and I might lose my job, etc.

In actuality, his actions would cost him his job, because how he sent out the emails and tone in the email.

The boss had asked me in the past, if we weren't going to make it on time or miss the meeting that we send him a status update on our current project(s).

He also knows of my disability and if I told him about the pain/missing the meeting/etc, he would understand. ALSO, HR is involved with the disabilities, so EVERYONE who's ANYONE that needs to be involved for this, is involved.

Well, today...

Rather, last night, I was working late, so I sent the boss an email.

I explained that I sent this email out to the Boss, to Ellie last night.

Last night, I didn't fall asleep till close to midnight... then I got up around 2:00 and stayed awake for another hour... after that, I woke up on/off because of PAIN.

This morning, Ellie started harping on me about not getting up for the meeting, and how I was going to be late, etc.

WTF!?

Didn't I tell her the night before that I had taken all the necessary steps the Boss required of me for these meetings!?

She just kept harping on me until I got up and got dressed.

By then, I was already LATE!

When I finally got connected to the conference call meeting, the boss said, "hey, I'm glad you were able to dial in."

He said it friendly, not mean...

He EXPECTED me to be late because of my email!

Ellie has got to get off of my ass!

So like what the fuck? Seriously! What the Fuck!? (WTF)

A friend of mine, a fellow HAM radio operator and coworker had been missing or not responding to emails or text messages for quite sometime.

Today, I asked another coworker & friend who sits near/next to him if he'd heard about him.

This other coworker said he knew a little and then sent me a link to a prison/police booking site.

My HAM radio friend's fucking mug shot was there along with a brief summary of why he was arrested.

The booking summary indicated that he was arrested for sexual misconduct with a minor.

When I saw that, I almost burst into tears!

The page indicated that he was arrested back in January.

That fucker!

Since it had been almost a month, I looked for his home phone so that I could contact his wife.

See, I had loaned him someone else's CW/Morse code paddles.

The owner of the paddles wanted them back.

A few hours ago, I stopped in at their place to pick up the paddles and give his wife my sympathy and offer her any assistance.

I didn't press my friend's wife for any details, and she didn't offer any except that it involved their adopted daughter and that she knew about it for a little bit.

How long? I don't know as I didn't need to know.

She just said that she couldn't live with it, so she and him went to the police station and he confessed to it.

I offered to help her liquidate his radio equipment so that she could continue making house payments and utilities.

He was obviously fired from work, so she needed the funds to make up for the loss of his income.

That fucking asshole!

His wife and I chatted for about an hour, but I stayed away from the actual details of when & what happened.

I really like his wife, she's a really, really sweet person.

I hope that she and their children can get through things quickly.

While I don't know his wife & children very well, I do feel a great deal of love and devotion towards them.

May God bless and keep them!

Manual Entry - Wednesday, March 21, 2012

I remember feeling ill most of the day and not doing really anything for work.

While I was going through the news feeds & videos, I somehow got linked to a video log channel from a gal in her late 20's with Bipolar disease. (That's actually how I wrote it that day.)

I sat there for the rest of the day watching her video entries.  At first I was attached by her face, but then the need to watch, learn and understand took over.

Do I suffer from Bipolar Disorder?

I searched out quizzes & symptoms.  The quizzes said that I was very likely.  The symptoms weren't as much.

Maybe that's why I get so many things done sometimes?  I get into a mania.  I've felt various times of depression after frantically working like hell.

Whether the work was for work or Christmas presents or whatever.

I have often felt that I wasn't always running around with my hair on fire, I wasn't happy.  Usually those were the times I was most depressed.

Ellie does a good job keeping me busy, but there are days that I feel she's a task master, not happy until I'm almost dead from work.