>

5/25/12

Ennui and Me

It ain't heavy it's a bother...

Wherein I muse about life in hope it helps others who relate similarly.

The best that can be said about the past few weeks is that they happened. Without periods of disruption in life we are never challenged to overcome them nor are we able to appreciate the better times in life. For those of us who are creative types mood swings of some form or another are a way of life, periods of bursts of creativity followed by moments of doubt we will never have a new idea again. Everyone suffers bumps along the arteries of life and for some it is far worse due to physical health or geographic and economic circumstances. For me it is recalling what I have been trained and learned about not being able to control circumstances but being able to control my attitudes and behavior regarding them

Fundamentally two simultaneous happenstances have bounced my normal disposition out of whack that I have had to get a grip on my attitude and work to turn things back to normal. Two weeks ago my sister was in a small city hospital she has been in more than out of in the past year with a seemingly losing battle against an unforgiving autoimmune disease. Fortunately she was brought under emergency circumstances to the major city where I live and put in hospital here for care and the turnaround in her health has been remarkable. She will never recover from Scleroderma but the key factor is her quality of life has been returned to her and has turned her around from being in chronic critical condition and restored to a somewhat functional pleasant life. Quality of life for the chronically ill is directly related to mental well being and length of life. She has been able to return home hooked to a lot fewer medical devices and less reliant on external equipment support with an improved outlook both medically and psychologically.


Coupled with her adventure is that for me during the past three weeks as a result of high winds, dust and wildfire smoke the pollution has caused a constant low grade migraine headache that even during normal conditions skews my entire disposition. What I dislike most of these episodes when they occur every few years are what everyone who also endures them is the cure is almost as bad as the ailment. There is not a person I know or am aware of that has problems with pollution, whether it is respiratory (the most common) or bad air induced episodic headaches is making the choice to function as best as possible with low volume medication or taking prescription drugs with side effects. Generally I function as best I can and reserve the medication until I can no longer stand it and then expect to become even more moody, hyper-sensitive and a sense of insecurity.

The psychology of this is irritating at best since logically I know that "this too shall pass" and that it requires mustering up the forces to implement the behavioral change techniques that I know will turn my emotions around. Still it is hard to get motivated to write and create visual art when feeling less than inspired but I also know that it will keep the worst possible condition, depression at bay. Therefore I've been creating and interacting with other people as best I could with in my mind mediocre results but it has resulted in my staying functional. The point is that it takes work to chug along and keep the train moving but now it is paying off, I am beginning to see the light again even if it is a pinhole at the end of a tunnel.