Stress kills. Period. Stress, anxiety, worry, fear, panic… these sorts of things start as psychological or emotional discomforts, but end up manifesting as physical illnesses. Our bodies create symptoms as a red flag to our brains: “Whatever you are doing, STOP IT!!!”

Recently I told you I was waiting for a diagnosis, because I felt worse than I’d ever felt in my life. My blood work, chest X-rays, and EKG all came back squeaky clean. I’m fit as a fiddle (contrary to all probability, given my lifestyle). This was great news, but didn’t answer the question of why I felt like I was dying.

As it turns out, the answer seems to be… stress.

The doc and I had actually dismissed this possible diagnosis early on in the question-and-answer session because I’m about as chillaxed as a person can get. I don’t work, my kid doesn’t go to school, I don’t have complicated family relations, or any of the usual stress factors. I’m not over-scheduled, frazzled, or spreading myself too thin. I don’t exactly fit the “stress case” profile–I’m a case study in how to remain calm. So we went ahead with the testing, just to be safe.

Once I passed all my tests with flying colors (I’ve always been a great test-taker, you know) we started digging deeper… below the surface. What I’m realizing is that there is such a thing as too chillaxed. I may be relaxing myself to death. Because I am so determined to keep a mellow vibe, live a simple life, remain calm and not let things bother me, what I’m doing instead is bottling up stuff inside.

I don’t freak out; I internalize. I don’t take frustrations out on others (which is nice), but I swallow them whole (projecting them onto my vital organs). Remaining calm in stressful situations is good in that it keeps the stress level from escalating into dangerous territory, but this only works if the stressful emotions are resolved in a healthy fashion.

I need to find an outlet for life’s little “bite my lip and grind my teeth” moments. These are a few tricks I use, when something stressful happens, to stay level-headed and effective:

1. DON’T PANIC – This reminds me to keep my head on straight… and makes me think of Douglas Adams, which always makes me smile.

2. TAKE THE PLACEBO – Everyone has some thing or some ritual that they firmly believe helps them relax. Whether it is scientifically proven to work or not is irrelevant. What matters is that it works for the individual… maybe it’s yoga, meditation, exercise, drinking a cup of chamomile tea, whatever. I like to do the ritual upfront, so I can breathe deeply (oxygenate my brain for optimal function).

3. GATHER INFORMATION – This is like the discovery process in a legal case, when you gather all relevant information, files, research, phone numbers, and anything else that even remotely pertains to the problem you are trying to solve. The trick is to not spend too much time in this phase, so get what you really need and move on.

4. MAKE LIST 1 – These are the variables you CAN control… it’s your to-do list, items you will need to accomplish in the next day, or week, or month, in order to solve the problem.

5. MAKE LIST 2 - These are things that worry you, but you can do nothing about. For instance, you CAN book a last minute flight. You might panic that the weather may delay your flight, but you CAN’T do anything about the weather. So this goes on List 2. You have acknowledged it as an item that worries you, but you are putting it out of your head for the time being, in order to focus on List 1.

6. TACKLE LIST 1 – Start checking items off this list. Anything you CAN do, relatively easily, should be handled right away so you can make progress towards a solution and have something to occupy your mind instead of worrying. Getting some things accomplished will help you feel relief right away.

7. REACH OUT – Share your burden with someone else. Maybe you talk to friends or family, or a therapist, or the blogosphere, but find someone to talk to about things. Sometimes just getting the thoughts out of your head makes them a little less daunting.

8. REVISIT LIST 2 – When you have completed all the items on List 1, take another look at List 2. By this point, some time has passed, and you may be calmer (better able to deal with the uncertainties). You may also notice that much of what you CAN do has been done, and there isn’t that much left to worry about. Now is the time to practice faith, trust, and patience. Sometimes we just have to wait. Breathe.

(I had items 9 and 10 on this list, but decided they didn’t add much value… and I’m not that obsessed with round numbers.)

What I’m missing now is the “What to do with toxic emotions once a crisis has been averted” part.

Two options I keep coming back to are:

9. Write – Sometimes I write in journals, or I post on the blog. Sometimes I furiously fill a page with all my rage, then rip it to pieces or set in on fire. These things tend to get the thoughts out of my head, but don’t actually solve anything. I am still left feeling… helpless.

10. Play – Many times when I am facing stressful conditions, I step away from them and immerse myself in Hunter’s world. Kids live in the present moment, and focus only on the things they are interested in. This serves as a lovely distraction, for a while, but it isn’t a long term solution.

But the thing is, when I’ve exhausted all of my coping mechanisms, there are some “issues” that remain… that will always be there, that I can do NOTHING about, but must learn to co-exist with. Some issues are hugely painful, terribly unfair, and not at all things I’ll ever be OK with… but, so what? Who ever said life would be fair?

Sometimes the things that stress us out don’t go away, and don’t get resolved, and never get better. What then?

I’m asking, really, because I don’t have a neat and tidy answer… obviously, or I probably wouldn’t have ended up in the doctor’s office. So now I want to know:

What do YOU do when life sits you in a corner, against a wall, and says, “On this particular issue, you will get NOTHING… and like it”? I mean, after crying, pouting, kicking and screaming… then what?

Thanks!!!

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Remaining Calm in Stressful Situations is a post from: Quest for Balance

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I was once a bit OCD. I don’t mean that my house was neat and tidy (though it probably was), or that I was a control freak (though I definitely was); but rather, I had obsessive thoughts that I compulsively acted on, even when I knew I shouldn’t. I would tell myself NOT to act on those thoughts… but, when they arose, it was like I was on autopilot. I absolutely, compulsively, had to follow through, no matter what.

When I was dealing with this issue, I learned that OCD people live in an imaginary world that is Beyond Reasonable Doubt. Some doubts, of course, are reasonable and prudent.

For instance:

I just cut raw chicken on the counter, so I should disinfect it. (Reasonable)

I need to disinfect the counter every 30 minutes because there MIGHT be germs on it. (OCD)

Or:

I wonder if I locked the door (or turned off the oven) before I left? (Reasonable)

I can’t leave my house without checking the lock (or oven) 17 times, because I MIGHT forget one of those times. (OCD)

Reasonable doubt keeps us alive and well.

Then there is the paralyzing world of doubts that are WAY beyond reason… “what if this or that (highly unlikely scenario) happens? I need to go to great lengths to avoid that catastrophe.” When this is your thought process, you end up not living at all, because fear and compulsive behaviors keep you from enjoying ANYTHING.

But at the other end of the spectrum, the pendulum swings to the OPPOSITE of OCD, careless risk-taking.

When this happens, people are not even concerned with reasonable doubts, because they get so caught up in their pleasure seeking, and narcissistic goals, they start to believe the rules of mere mortals don’t apply to them. They imagine things like, “I’m special, extraordinary, smarter, stronger, better, richer… and therefore, these things (that happen on a fairly regular basis to other people) will NOT happen to me.”

Recently I watched Everest: Beyond the Limits, and was struck by how many times I heard people say, “If I had only known THIS would be the price I had to pay (losing fingers, or toes, or friends), I never would have come.”

Really?!

Because I’m not even a climber, I’ve just watched a few Everest specials on TV, and even I know that every climbing season people on Everest lose fingers and toes to frostbite, get pulmonary or cerebral edema, suffer snow blindness, and any number of other things… and these are the (lucky) ones who survive their summit attempts.

Everest is, for all intents and purposes, the world’s highest graveyard; it is covered in bodies of climbers that cannot be recovered. This is not a big secret… it’s pretty well documented.

You didn’t KNOW? Or you didn’t think it would happen to YOU?

Those are two very different things.

This week I watched Tiger Woods deliver his staged press conference on the issue of his affairs. He admitted that he had come to believe he didn’t have to play by the same rules that apply to everyone else. He thought he could just act on selfish impulse, without worrying about consequences.

I guess if he had KNOWN his affairs would destroy his family, and the professional image he worked so hard to achieve, he might’ve kept it in his pants.

Really?! A smart guy, like Tiger, didn’t do the simple “what if” scenario, following his actions through to their logical conclusions? Or maybe he did, and just didn’t care enough about the outcome… but that’s not likely. He thought, “OTHERS get caught, but not me. I’m Tiger Woods.”

But he did get caught, and shattered a bunch of hearts in the process.

Why in the world would he do that?

Granted, some risks beyond “normal” tolerance must be taken for progress to be made in all sorts of fields. But, it seems to me, total carelessness and disregard for others, in the pursuit of one’s own pleasure or glory, is a recipe for disaster and regret.

What do you think?

How do we know what “reasonable” doubts are? Have you ever felt trapped by worries or concerns that were WAY beyond what others considered reasonable?

How much risk-taking is healthy and normal? Do you engage in behaviors you KNOW could cost you dearly, thinking you probably won’t get caught? (I don’t actually expect you to confess them here, by the way.)

How do we find the balance between too much risk, and not enough?

How do we know when we’ve gone too far?

Are some obsessions better than others?

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OCD: The Pendulum of Caution, Risk, and Reasonable Doubt is a post from: Quest for Balance

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Something strange has been happening lately; the sun is falling out of the sky! Or at least, it feels that way to me. I don’t mean that metaphorically, like: I’m depressed and so the world is in perpetual darkness. I mean, it feels like the sun has lost its will to live.

Let me frame this for you, so you can understand where I’m coming from:

As many of you know, I grew up in Costa Rica, and that meant spending LOTS of time at the beach. My siblings, friends, and I would head off exploring down the beach to the estuary (where the river meets the sea), sometimes for a few hours. My mom would pack a lunch for us and say something like, “Be back by 1:00!” (Or two, or whatever.)

None of us wore a watch, of course; I’m not even sure we owned a watch, but that didn’t matter. Costa Rica is practically at the equator, and that means that at noon the sun is directly overhead. Rises in the East, sets in the West, overhead at noon. So, if the sun was on our right in the morning, when we left, we should be back when it has gone overhead and slightly to the left (West, towards the ocean).

Clockwork, right?

I could always count on the sun to let me know what time it was, within a reasonable margin of error.

Fast forward to college, when I got my pilot’s license, in California. The sun wasn’t quite as reliable as a clock, because it wasn’t directly overhead at noon… just a few degrees off; but, it made an awesome compass. If I was flying around and my compass stopped working, I would know my heading by the position of the sun. If it’s 9:00 am and the sun is to my right, over the mountains, I am heading North. If it’s 4:00 pm, and the sun is to my right (over the ocean), I am heading South.

This seems pretty obvious when we have mountains and ocean to go by, but it comes in really handy when you are flying out in the desert… say, to Vegas, or Palm Springs, where all you see for a zillion miles is sand below you and sky above.

So, as a rule, the sun has always been pretty helpful for me, in terms of my sense of direction and spatial awareness. I know where I am because of where IT is. Only now, IT isn’t there anymore!

Vermont is a FAR cry from being near the equator so, at least in the Winter, the whole East to West, Sunrise to Sunset thing happens somewhere to the South of us. It’s like, the game of life is going on “down there, somewhere” and we are on the sidelines, watching it happen.

Now, at 3:00 pm, if I am facing the sun, it feels like I am facing West, but it’s really South… or South by Southwest, or some other random combination that just makes me feel LOST. At noon, the sun is only slightly above the horizon, so I feel like it is really mid-morning. All of a sudden, 4:00 pm rolls around and the sun is setting!

“Eeek! But, I haven’t DONE anything yet! Where did the day go?”

“Where am I? And, where has my day gone?”

This is kind of what it feels like when you have a late onset of any sort of mental illness, in which your brain chemicals aren’t doing what they are supposed to do. Sometimes this happens naturally; sometimes it’s induced by meds, or trauma. The world and everything in it has been one way for your whole life, and suddenly, it isn’t. All of a sudden, nothing works the way it used to; people don’t seem to be like they used to be. The world, and your role in it, has changed.

How do you make decisions in a world you don’t recognize? Can you trust your brain to show you what is really happening? The thoughts you are having are NOTHING like the ones you used to have… which ones do you act on?

In my immediate family, I have dealt with depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. I hate all three of them, each for their own reasons. But what they all have in common, is that they make us feel lost, confused, isolated, frustrated, and a little afraid. The simplest things become very difficult when you can’t trust your own brain to show you the way… just like I can no longer count on the sun to show me the time or direction.

So, what are we to do when all the “constants” have changed?

Find something new to trust.

The very best way I have found to cope with any of our mental illnesses is to have a person (or a few people) who we trust in a major way. When our brain is confusing us, making the world seem foggy and mysterious, we turn to those people, and trust what they say… no matter what. Trust them to differentiate between the thoughts you should act on, and the thoughts you should ignore. You CAN manage this.

If you really need a reminder that you can overcome any challenge, you should see Josh Hanagarne’s video, No Excuses. It’s time to get back in the game.

As for my disorientation in Vermont, I guess I’ll buy a compass… and a watch.

Question for You:

Do you know anyone who deals with a mental illness? How do they find their way?

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Mental Illness: The Sun Also Rises… Barely is a post from: Quest for Balance

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Mrs. Jacqueline has always been a highly respected and admired woman in society. She excelled in academics, has incredible artistic talents, and is completely devoted to helping others in any way she can.

When Mrs. Jacqueline goes out into the world, and shares her energy and enthusiasm with everyone she meets, she is unstoppable. There is nothing Mrs. Jacqueline can not accomplish, if she sets her mind to it.

Little Miss Heidi, on the other hand, never wants to leave the safe confines of her home. She misses out on everything in life by hiding from everyone she knows. Little Miss Heidi doesn’t want to wake up to face her days. She doesn’t want to be seen, and dreads the thought of having to talk to anyone.

Although, occasionally, Little Miss Heidi has some fairly creative ideas, she has no energy whatsoever to carry them through to completion. Usually her thoughts just wander aimlessly around in her head, without coalescing into a single, useful notion.

She just sits.

Little Miss Heidi hates herself for being this way, but simply cannot change. Most days, there isn’t enough life force or ambition left in her to even try.

How these two ever got together is a mystery to all who know them. They are complete opposites in every way, yet they are inseparable.

One would think Mrs. Jacqueline would’ve had quite enough of Little Miss Heidi’s gloomy nonsense, and simply moved on to a better use of her time. Or, perhaps, Little Miss Heidi would finally just give up on trying to be more like Mrs. Jacqueline, and stop seeing her altogether.

And yet, they continue to co-exist.

When Heidi is particularly despondent, Jackie waits patiently for her to recover, whispering words of comfort:

“It’s going to be OK.”

“You’ll feel better soon, I promise.”

“Whatever you do, don’t give up!”

When Heidi recovers some of her health and hope, she throws all of her energy into being Jackie’s most ardent supporter, feeling certain that one day she, too, will have all that enthusiasm and zest for life.

As long as Heidi is striving to be more like Jackie, there is hope for them both. But, if Jackie ever gives up, leaving Heidi to fend for herself or, worse yet, becoming like her, they will both suffer greatly.

What is the best way to keep Little Miss Heidi striving, and Mrs. Jacqueline motivated to keep doing her very best? How do we keep them both from giving up?

If anyone can answer this, I shall be eternally grateful, as Jackie and Heidi are both, well… sides of me.

What about you?

Do you have Jackie and Heidi (Jekyll and Hyde) sides too?

Thanks!

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Jackie and Heidi: A Tale of Unlikely Companions is a post from: Quest for Balance

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Not too long ago I wrote a guest post for Urban Monk, in which I mentioned some of the symptoms of Bipolar Disorder. Several people wrote to me asking for more information about the disease since they, or others they knew, were struggling with it. I am no expert on this subject, nor am I a medical professional of any sort… but I lost my dad and my dear friend to BD, and I’ve learned a few things about it that I can share with you.

Here are five things I think everyone should know about Bipolar Disorder:

1. Bipolar Disorder can be extremely isolating. Most people will never understand what you are going through as a patient, or as a caregiver to someone who suffers from BD. Until the symptoms get tremendously out of hand, it is easy to mistake the beginning of a manic episode for the patient just being in a really good mood.

I will never forget how frustrating it was when my siblings and I recognized the early warning signs of a manic upswing in my dad. We would try to get him to take the appropriate meds, and get help. But he, of course, refused… he was finally feeling great and didn’t want that feeling to end. Then he would tell anyone who would listen that we were conspiring against him, trying to get him “locked up” for our own selfish reasons. His friends would say, “Can’t you see he’s finally happy? Why do you want to take that away from him?” Then, inevitably, it would get out of hand and they would come running to us to do something, anything, to help him.

2. Managing Bipolar Disorder is incredibly frustrating. One the one hand, you feel isolated since most people don’t understand the disease. On the other hand, the medical professionals you turn to for help don’t understand it much better. The current system of treatment and medication for the management of this and other mental illnesses is woefully inadequate. We’ve come a long way since “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” but we are nowhere near a good solution.

Psychiatric hospitals are not fun to be in. The care you receive there is minimal and sometimes misguided. Billing and insurance issues are a nightmare. About the only thing these places are good for is to keep the patients from hurting themselves or others. It’s basically adult daycare, since most of us can’t spend 24 hours a day making sure our bipolar loved one isn’t getting into some kind of trouble. The system is awful, and frustrating; but it’s the best we’ve got.

3. There IS always hope. One of the best success stories I have found is the book An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison. She is a psychiatrist who also suffers from bipolar disorder. What is encouraging about her story is that she has found a way to deal with the disease and still keep her career and life relatively normal.

What works for her may not necessarily work for someone else… but at least it means that some semblance of recovery is possible. I believe anyone can effectively manage this disease if they first admit they have it, and are willing to do whatever it takes to get well. Usually this means trusting someone else more than you trust your own brain, thoughts, or feelings. It isn’t easy, but it can be done.

4. Recognizing the fulcrum is vital. The key to managing bipolar disorder is learning to recognize the fulcrum, or tipping point, from one extreme to the other. When my dad was so depressed he needed to be institutionalized and given electroshock therapy, he was released from the hospital with a prescription for anti-depressants. As he started to feel better, we were all happy that his medications were having the desired effect. But at some point, not-depressed became a little too happy.

Eventually my siblings and I got quite skilled at recognizing that transition point, at which he needed to stop taking the anti-depressants. If he continued on them, he soon became manic and got himself in a world of trouble. The problem with my dad was, he never trusted anyone or anything but his own thoughts. So when we tried to adjust his medications, he thought we were purposely trying to keep him depressed, and he fought us all the way. You simply cannot help someone who refuses to be helped.

5. Recovery requires a tradeoff. One of the things that makes it difficult to manage this disease is that the patient must be willing to give up the highs to avoid the lows. The manic highs and delusions of grandeur can be so incredibly addictive that sometimes the patient doesn’t want to give them up. It’s a little like a toxic relationship — an emotional roller coaster between horrible abuse, and incredibly amazing “good times”. Many people are unwilling to walk away from abusive relationships because the good times are so very wonderful. It’s kinda like this with Bipolar Disorder and other mental illnesses… at least in the early stages.

You may recall the movie A Beautiful Mind, in which John Nash KNEW he had a problem (in his case, Paranoid Schizophrenia) but hated to take the medications because they dulled his thoughts. He was incapable of his amazing mathematical insights when he was medicated with anti-psychotic drugs. It isn’t an easy decision to make, giving up the thrills of the high; but it’s one I fear is necessary in order to avoid the very real dangers of the lows.

If you, or someone you know, suffers from Bipolar Disorder, I strongly encourage you to pick up a copy of An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness. It is a great starting point on the journey to recovery. It’s a long road, but the chances are good that things can get better along the way.

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Thanks!!!

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Bipolar Disorder: 5 Things Everyone Should Know is a post from: Quest for Balance

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