I'm off it, starting immediately.

I've mentioned a lot of books over the years on this website, and I realize that about a rather startling percentage of them, I've freely proclaimed, "This book changed my life." It was always true, too, so don't think it was hot air.

But friends, this book changed my life. Hugely. Immensely. "Radically", we might say. And I'm only up to Chapter 10. I'm only up to Chapter 10, but already, it all seems so clear to me now, this one simple truth:

To be free of it, first you have to stop fighting it.

This is a concept first brought to me by the ACT books I'd been studying over the past month or so. However, this latest tome just drives it all home, and makes it work.

And because of it, when I got to work today, everything was different, because I had found freedom I hadn't known before, and the future felt filled with possibilities.

I think it has done it's job, and now it's time to move on.

The job it's done, as I'm sure I've explained here, but if not, then definitely elsewhere, was to "raise the baseline" of my emotional difficulties, to a point where I could focus on doing what I needed to do to fully eradicate them. I still suspect that it was never even the drugs themselves which did anything (remember, SSRI antidepressants are only 30% more effective than sugar pills), but the simple act of going to the doctor to get them which helped the most.

Since then it's just been a slow, steady ascention from the insidious pit of depression/anxiety/whatever other fun words you want to use to describe a life in constant self-destructive turmoil.

This diary will end when I finish or throw out the rest of this bottle. At that point, these periodic updates will continue in a different form, on a different website (http://moltobenny.com), but the diary will remain forever as either an inspirational story, a case study, or a bunch of self-indulgent crap, depending on your perspective. Use it in good health.

Now back to my life. This is the first weekend I've had in three weeks that I had the freedom to spend at home and do nothing. And that's exactly what I did. I stayed home and did nothing. And it has been magnificent. This culture speaks of "free time" like it's a disease. We sneer disparagingly at people who "have too much free time", and who "need to get a life". As if a moment of existence not piled high with action and striving and driving and chasing and running is wasted.

Today I went to get my FAA physical, so I could fly again.

Take note that, except for a brief nice stint in Boulder, all of my previous flying was done while being something reasonably close to clinically depressed. And I always passed the physical with flying colors.

Today, I went to get my FAA physical, the fourth such exam I've endured, and this was the first time they wouldn't give me the ticket. "We'll have to send this down to Oklahoma", the Dr. said.

Why's that?

"Because it says here, you're taking Zoloft."

Seems they don't want depressed people flying, because we might plow the Cessna 172 into an office building.

So let me get this straight.

I was depressed for 34 years. I flew over a hundred hours depressed. I managed to avoid most of your larger office buildings.

But now that I'm taking treatment for my problem, and am feeling much, much better, NOW I'm a danger to society.

To give you some more material, though, here's an email I just wrote to Clash, fellow depressive, which I think came out pretty well, so maybe you'll enjoy reading it:

> > > Well, actually, I was being serious (just wrapping it in a grape leaf
> > > of humor).  But I'm saying, it sounds like it's hard to do.

Alright, I guess I'll reply to this now.

Is it hard to do? I suppose that depends on what "it" is. If you are really suffering from something we could reasonably label "depression", and it's been with you a long time (which is what I sense from our continuing -- albeit highly-humor-motivated -- discussions), and if we then define "it" as "being rid of depression", then the answer is, "it is very hard to do."

However, it's not as bad as all that.

I know it's hard to do, because it took me 34 years to do. I know it's hard to do, because most depressed folks never do it at all.

But be of good cheer. Though it (as well as many other concepts you'll doubtless come into contact with if you choose to undertake such an adventure) sounds trite, the most difficult part is getting started.

Of course, some ways of attacking the problem are harder to start than others.

1. Drinking/illicit drug use is fairly easy, but rarely effective, as you might have already realized.

2. Doing nothing is almost as easy as drinking, but also relatively ineffective.

3. Taking antidepressant drugs is significantly harder than 1 and 2, because the very act of taking antidepressant drugs requires that you a) admit that you can't do it "by yourself", b) commit to spending the money, c) buy into the concept that depression is a physical pathology, rather than just the domain of the lazy and stoically pitiful. This last step is ultimately freeing ("it's not all my fault"), but also difficult for the personalizing depressive (which we are) to embrace at first. The effectiveness of antidepressant drugs is, unfortunately, highly questionable, and will likely be so for the foreseeable future. And in cases where they *are* effective, they are most often only partially so. A partial recovery, much like an alcoholic vowing to drink less, almost always foretells a relapse.

4. Going to a psychotherapist. This is even harder to start than the drugs, because it requires far more time, far more effort (both emotionally and physically), and of course, far more money. The effectiveness varies wildly, based on the type of therapy offered, quality of the practitioner, and things like that. So it's a risk. However, even the greatest psychotherapist, employing the most state-of-the-art therapy known to man can still only be partially effective. Something is missing. Something is missing, in fact, from all of these options, and only until the final project is begun will any real, long-term, fundamental change for the better be realized:

5. Change the way you think.

There, another one of those trite phrases I warned you about.

However, see how even the word "psychotherapy" indicates that that is, in fact, what you are paying them to do. Change your thinking. And that's what we take the drugs for. And what we repress and avoid for. And what we drink for. Etc, etc.

So what "it" really is, in the final analysis, is "changing your thinking".

And that is nearly impossible to get started.

But lucky the soul who can get started, because once you do, it magically not only becomes much, much easier, but it also becomes effortless. Once you start down the path to changing your thinking, it feels so much better, so good, that you cannot wait to continue the work. This is how it was with me, anyway. Once I found the right help, the right words, to give me that first push, it was as good as done.

The trick, then, is... find the right help. Find the right words.

There are many good words available, thankfully, once you embrace the idea of listening to them. I found my words in self-help books. The first couple I read were worthless pablum that had no chance of affecting me. Then I happened on my first cognitive therapy book, and that was the beginning of the end of the bad times. That was the push.

CT may not work for you. It may. But there are other options.

I've recently come into "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy", one of the "third wave" of behavioral therapies, coming out of the core of old-school behavioral analysis, but adding modern concepts mixed with Buddhist-type concepts of "mindfulness" and whatnot. It's a little harder to take for folks like us (or like me, anyway) who tend to think that anything even remotely in contact with the concept of "spirituality" is a bunch of hooey, but it's still founded in real science, which is sugar for the medicine.

There are countless others still.

The best chance you have is to hear descriptions of a bunch of them, and pick one which sounds like you could at least begin to buy into it, begin the dialogue. That part is easy, because all you have to do is listen. You don't have to do anything.

I can give you a brief description of CT and ACT, and an even briefer description of a few other behavioral therapy brands, if you'd like.

Of course, there's always psychoanalysis, but that's a load of horseshit, and everybody knows it. Sell that shit to the tourists.

So, that's all. Hard to get started. Hard to find something you can buy into. After that, though, the train's already gotten to the top of the first hill, and the rest of the ride's a scream.

Sincerely, myself.

(If any of the above came across as condescending or patently obvious, please to forgive. I'm as much laying the groundwork for a future writing project as replying to your specific email -- perhaps moreso. So, it was really written for "the people". And "the people", as you know, are largely dumbasses.)

The more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to be depressed. I have no specific evidence to back this up, but it seems obvious after even the most cursory observation of the human condition. Check out anyone you know who is depressed. Chances are, they are smarter than you. Am I right? Of course.

Many have suggested reasons for this. A popular reason, particularly among those so afflicted, is that "being more intelligent, [we] have a more realistic, insightful view of the world". Perfectly reasonable. However, also, the most ignorant, misguided, utterly back-asswards concept of all time. In fact, I suspect the truth is much closer to the opposite of that. Relational Frame Theory (see http://contextualpsychology.org or http://relationalframetheory.com) postulates a much more compelling view of the problem, which is that the very thing which allows humans to do amazing things like building rocket ships and caramelizing onions, is the very thing which eventually ends up causing problems in the minds of those gifted with this intelligence. And that thing is the ability to evaluate, compare, and draw arbitrary relations between a limitless network of symbolic knowledge. In less obnoxious terms, it's the ability to relate one thing to another. Better, worse. The same as. And then apply these relationships to different things. "If we do this, then this happens. So if we do THAT, then THIS should happen. And that will be better." There you have it. Relating, evaluating. That right there is a reasonable definition of the word "intelligence", and that right there is (possibly) what ends up causing problems for smart people. They can relate and evaluate things, but then can also relate and evaluate things in reference to themselves, and in the case of depression, themselves always come up wanting.

So that is (possibly) why smart people are more depressed than dumb people.

But that is not why smart people remain depressed. Smart people remain depressed, because smart people by their very nature, don't like being talked to like they're four years old.

So, given all of the above things, here it is: "How to rid the world of depression immediately, and forever."

It requires one step. That step is: STOP PUBLISHING SELF-HELP BOOKS WITH NAMES WHICH YOU WOULDN'T EVEN SUGGEST TO YOUR KINDERGARTENER CHILD FOR FEAR OF INSULTING HIS INTELLIGENCE.

God.

I swear, the book that saved my life, which I've mentioned here often, I probably would have read years ago, but for the absolutely cringe-inducing title, "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy". I'm sorry. Was I instantly teleported to an episode of Blue's Clues? Where's a Thomas Kincaid painting when you need one.

The laymans' intro to ACT? "Get Out of Your Mind, and Into Your Life!" How about "Give Me a Fucking Break and Get to the Point". This is...

Whew. I planned on going on and on about this. Which I guess I sort of have. But now I'm tired of it, and sleepy, so perhaps I'll revisit this later. You get the point though, right? The biggest market for these books will never buy them, because they sound so goddamn stupid. Stop it.

Let's talk, though. As time goes on, I would like this website to be less about the minutae of my daily routines, and even less about my experience with the titular drug, and more about working towards a bigger project, which I can see somewhere floating out there in the universe, which is a book. What market there is for a book about recovery from depression, written by not only a non-psychologist, but someone who didn't even finish high school, I'm not sure. I probably would not have bought a self-help book by some random high-school drop out computer geek. However, the purpose is aimed more toward altruism and self-expression than commerce, so perhaps the marketability is not really an issue. Anyway, the point is, I'm here to help, and wish to become moreso.

I'm here to help, because I remember what it was like. Because I'm never more than one single emotional misstep away from being back there. I'm here to help, because I've seen rock bottom, and I can still taste it, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy (who we've already established who that is.) I'm here to help because this stuff is all I study anymore, all I think about anymore, all I really care about anymore. (Except sailing, of course.) (And my cats.) (And cooking.) (But you get the idea.)

So, just throwing that out there. Whether anything comes from it, I don't know, and don't much care. But call it scene-setting for this update, where I will address the Biggest Mistake on my Goals List.

You can still see the Goals List here. You can still see the items on it, still all very important to me. But one of them does not belong. One of them, in fact, can never be accomplished as long as it's on the list. Can you pick it out?

Can you?

It is a natural, almost inevitable conclusion to arrive at. If you are depressed, you will likely also arrive at it. "If only I could learn to relax, I wouldn't be so depressed." There is truth, albeit backwards, in this. Greater minds than mine have expressed it as such: "A depressed mind cannot live in a relaxed body." That statement is so very true that it tempts one to call anxiety and depression synonymous. They are not, but they walk the land as partners in crime.

Here's the trick, though.

You cannot achieve relaxation. It can only happen to you. You cannot strive for it. It will only show up unannounced.

You can never ask, "Am I relaxed?" Because if you are asking it, the answer is already "no".

But one day, you will be going about your daily business, tending to the neverending chores of life, when it will simply occur to you. You're relaxed. Bam. And by that point, it's only of passing interest.

Putting "relax" on a to-do list is like trying to beat your shadow in a race. And it was the Biggest Mistake on my Goals List.

And here I am.

Just not feeling it today, is all. I can certainly blame it on the cats, who showed me how much they missed me all weekend by not letting me sleep more than 20 minutes in a row at any one point during the night. But I dunno. Just not feeling it. Feeling blah. Feeling tired and bored. Feeling disinterested in anything but just sort of sitting here and staring at the cool electric flickering mushroom. And that's it.

Work today was the same way. I begged for meetings, which would give me an opportunity to just sit there and do nothing. I got in ripe and early, but left before 5. I am gonna cook a little dinner later, after it marinates a bit longer. But I'm not going to the pool. I'm not going to work on any websites.

Just kinda gonna sit here.

But there's something to be learned here. Recovering from depression, I think, is far more about how you react when you feel bad than when you feel good. Anyone can feel good when they feel good. But what do you do when you feel bad? Well, if you're depressed, your bad-feeling makes you think that your life sucks because you feel bad, and then you begin blaming yourself about all the missed opportunities and all the past inadequacies that led to your life sucking, and thus your feeling bad. Then you begin to suspect that you will never feel better. Then you are sure of it. Then you scream in desperation, and drink until you pass out. That's just kind of how it goes.

When you're not depressed, you just feel bad.

I think it's a tremendous victory that I've finally achieved something which has eluded me for the previous 34 years: Just feeling bad.

That makes me feel good.

December, 2005 began much as November, 2005 ended -- with me getting up, going to work and working. Where it differs is when at six PM, I was called into the big boss' office, and instructed very directly by him to GO HOME. At first I feared I was being reprimanded for some unknown trangression I had committed (or he had found this website), but no, it was just his way of saying, thanks for busting ass and giving it my all, and I had earned a night of the three Rs: Restin', Relaxin', and wRitin' on this here website! So, that was nice, and bolsters my suspicion that it's unlikely I will be fired any time within the next couple weeks, which is a nice load off my mind.

After that, I went home, packed up for my trip to Paso Robles this weekend, where I will be visiting my awesome cousin Michelle, and will thus be unable to update the website, had some dinner, am having a lovely beverage, and will be turning in soon!

While I'm here, though, it's been some time since our last BDC. This time, I will do it with you, and in detail. Let's party.

The question is: How much have you experienced the following symptoms during the past week, including today?

Feeling sad or down in the dumps.
0. Now, pissed off at certain dickwads, that's another story. But that's not on the quiz.

Feeling unhappy or blue.
0. Same. Although question 1 and 2 are virtually identical, and were thus phased out of later versions of the quiz.

Crying spells or tearfulness.
0. Big girls don't cry.

Feeling discouraged.
0.

Feeling hopeless.
0.

Low self-esteem.
Ah, my old nemesis. You know what, I'm going to go ahead and give this a zero, for the first time in my life. To elaborate, this is the first week I can remember when I didn't feel like I needed to apologize for myself. And even if I did, I quickly realized I didn't. If you know what I mean.

Feeling worthless or inadequate.
1. I will notch one up here, just because of certain dickwads who seemingly live to make other people feel worthless and inadequate, and being historically hypersensitive to this, I'm one of his best customers.

Guilt or shame.
Zero. I yam what I yam.

Criticizing yourself or blaming yourself.
0. Fuck you.

Difficulty making decisions.
None.

Loss of interest in family, friends or colleagues.
None, but I didn't have that much interest to lose.

Loneliness.
0. See above.

Spending less time with family or friends.
0. See above.

Loss of motivation.
No.

Loss of interest in work or other activities.
0. Well, I have experienced a loss of interest in working with dickwads, but that's normal, I think.

Avoiding work or other activities.
Hah! I just got sent home for spending too much time at the office.

Loss of pleasure or satisfaction in life.
No.

Feeling tired.
0. Other than when I feel tired. But tired is a reasonable thing to feel, you know, when you're tired.

Difficulty sleeping or sleeping too much.
0. My sleeping difficulties are still entirely the fault of my cats.

Decreased or increased appetite.
No.

Loss of interest in sex.
See yesterday's entry. I would consider it a "loss of interest in sex" when compared with, say, four months ago. But I'm still saying 0 on this, because whatever.

Worrying about your health.
No.

Do you have any suicidal thoughts?

Would you like to end your life?

Do you have a plan for harming yourself?
No, no, no.

Pretty goddamn good, if you ask me.

Now, to those of you out there -- and you know who you are -- who apparently think that all of these low numbers mean I'm "fooling myself into being happy" and somehow "living in a land of fluffy bunnies, denying reality", let me say this: This is not a measurement of HAPPINESS. Happiness is not the opposite of depression.

Do you hear this? All of you? Let me say it again:

Happiness is not the opposite of depression.

The opposite of depression is a full range of emotional experiences, experienced fully. It means feeling happiness, sadness, frustration, joy, anger, love, being pissed off at dickwads, and the like, without defense, without judgement or self-reprisal.

The opposite of depression is not feeling happy. The opposite of depression is feeling.

Not to spoil the surprise, but here's my plans for tomorrow: Get up, go to work, work, come home, make some dinner, and go to sleep.

But you know what? I've gotten off the main subject of this diary, which is my experience with Zoloft. Hence the title. So let's review what's been going on, Zoloft-wise speaking, since the earlier days of this report, when it was all a new, exciting, diarrhea-inducing adventure:

Not much. I still have to make bathroom runs more frequently, but I'm less swayed to attribute that to the drugs than to the pounds and pounds of free fruit of questionable quality which I pound down all day at work. My "morning routine" has settled down into a "two or three times a week routine", which may leave some of you aghast, and yet others repulsed, but I vowed -- or at least demonstrated -- from the beginning of this diary that I was going to be brutally honest. I attribute this partly to the drugs, partly to the fact that I work all damn day and am so exhausted by the end of the day that I can barely operate my torse and head area, much less the more delicate extremities, and partly to the fact that I don't work or otherwise spend any time with any hot broads, so there's nothing really there to "fire up the ol' John Deere", so to speak. But I think that's enough about this topic.

Other than that, I don't notice anything. I take the pills every day, and every day I update the website. And things just roll and roll along.

I present to you, then... A Complete Beginner's Guide to Acceptance & Commitment Therapy!

Okay. First, try not to think of a yellow schoobus. For five minutes. Try as hard as you can not to think about a yellow schoolbus. Let me know how well you did, then we can move on. schoolbus. Let me know how well you did, then we can move on.

"I couldn't think of anything BUT a yellow schoolbus."

The point is this:

Everyone's got pain. It's a fact of life. However, people with chronic emotional problems tend to deal with their negative thoughts and feelings in two very destructive, circularly corrosive ways.

First, they tend to buy into their feelings, embody them, and identify with them. The thought morphs from an inescapable byproduct of a highly evolved brain which just pumps out thoughts all day long, into the person's true vision of themself. This is called "cognitive fusion". The self becomes "fused" with the thoughts that the brain pumps out. There is no mediation between them. The brain says, "I suck!" We interpret that not as "I just had the thought that I suck", but that we actually DO suck.

Second, they tend to fight against them. Many spend their entire lives fighting against them, doing whatever they can to make them go away. You're well aware of many of those methods. The problem is, it never, never, ever works, for the same reason that you cannot NOT think about a yellow schoolbus. Fighting against anxiety ("don't be anxious!") is a surefire way to exacerbate your anxiety. Similarly depression, or myriad other harmful cognitive patterns.

So, the newfangled, dangerously "new-agey" sounding "Acceptance & Commitment Therapy" focuses primarily on two things: Cognitive *defusion*, and dropping the struggle.

To defuse, we identify the thoughts and feelings as what they are (byproduct of an endlessly active mind, which is simply an organ in the body doing what it was trained to do). "I'm anxious" becomes "I am having the feeling of being anxious."

To drop the struggle, we simply stop fighting against it. Not in the sense of resigning to it. Not with the intent of making it go away (because if you are doing it with that intent, it will never work -- it's functionally equivalent to trying to stop thinking about the bus), but simply with the intent of *accepting* it, nonjudgementally, as it is (and not, as the literature reads, "as it says it is".)

For this last point, metaphors are useful. My favorite is that of (again) a bus, which you are the driver of, and all these recurrent, pestering negative thoughts are monsters in the back of the bus. They're free to come along for the ride, but they don't get to determine where the bus goes. But the thought of allowing them onboard is key. They are like family. If you treat them as such (albeit family you'd really rather not have around), you no longer define your life by escaping them.

Which, as we've already seen, you can't.

In my *personal* experience, I have found a mixture of this and regular, classic cognitive therapy to be a wonderful mix. The CT works on ameliorating the flawed, irrational negative thoughts in the first place, and those that get through are welcomed with open arms by the ACT. A whimsical way of expressing this (which I just came up with) is, you don't always have to have your negative thoughts, but once you do, they're your responsibility.

So. Buncha crap?

A ridiculous waste of time, you say? Well, yes. BUT, as you'll notice, if you look up at the address bar of your browser, you are no longer at sonowthen.net! This is because I have created a whole new world of wonder and joy and stories about cats and pictures of food! That's right, I am proud to introduce to you, after 48 hours of nerdy toil in front of a laptop with scratches and pawprints all over the screen:

Molto Benny!

That's right, a whole (very cleverly named, if I do say so myself) world of myself-related content. Take a look, won't you? And enjoy every minute, as I enjoyed every minute bringing it to you, except for the seven goddamn hours it took me to get Apache and Tomcat working together, which... well, I'll have more to say about this shortly.

I tend to get a little self-centered on here, though, which is why I'd like to take this "time-out" to give a few "shout-outs" to some people and/or organizations out there which have really touched my life recently:

First, to iPowerWeb and GoDaddy, my former web hosting services, I say: FUCK YOU! I don't need your weak-ass customer service and suck-ass recurring payments and lame-ass "hosting package option" shit anymore. That's right, because Molto Benny, along with everything associated with it, including this page, is now hosted by me, right here in my apartment, right here on this very same scratched up, pawed up laptop. And I couldn't have done it without the fine folks at "DNS2GO", who provide my dynamic DNS. Which reminds me:

To DNS2GO, and all the fine people over at Deerfield, Inc., I can only say: FUCK YOU! Here's the email I get after they (very quickly and efficiently) take my goddamn money: "Thanks for the cash! We'll send you your registration information in 30 minutes. But if for some reason, it doesn't show up for 24 hours, email us!" 30 minutes came and went without even a mouse fart. But right about at the 22nd, 23rd hour, WOW! What a surprise! They finally provide the service which they said they'd provide, you know, when they TOOK MY MONEY, which is generally when one likes to have a service provided. But the delay gave me plenty of extra time to figure out how to use Apache and Tomcat, which, allow me to state the following:

To the Apache Group, I gotta say: FUCK YOU! You fucking nerds. You pathetic UNIX geeks. Yes, your product is the best, and the most configurable, and most powerful in the world. Great. And we're all really IMPRESSED with all of the obscure, unintelligible configuration options and your scant, haughty, nerdier-than-thou documentation. You KNOW what we want to do. Your goddamn SOFTWARE knows what we want it to do, but you just refuse to make it do it, until we run through enough of your dumbass hoops, because you're so frustrated that you're 50 years old now and still haven't touched a boobie, so this is the only power you get, making decent, hardworking people nuts with your "mod_rewrite" crap and your "ajp13 connectors" and shit. You make me nauseous. Which I know was your point, but I spent half of my stupid weekend pounding my head against this crap. Good job. Now, because I'm much more centered emotionally, this didn't bother me as much as it once was, particularly since I still had memories of my lovely meal at Typhoon the evening before still lingering in my head. Which leads me to my next shout-out:

To Typhoon, my very favorite restaurant in the whole world, let me just say: FUCK YOU! You motherfuckers. Check this out. I wanted the trout. Adam wanted the catfish. I said, "huh, but I think the catfish is served whole, and it's big, so it's like for two people." But we asked the guy. He said, "Catfish comes in large, medium, small". We ask, "is Small good for one person? Or medium, or what?" He says, very hesitantly, "Well, if someone were real hungry, the medium would do it." Adam packs it away, so he ordered the medium catfish, and I ordered the trout. That's when we first started to get concerned, because he looked back at us and asked in a concerned tone, "So... wait, you want both?"

Uh oh.

Suffice it to say, if you've ever seen the Flintstones, and remember the rack of ribs from the opening credits (which never made sense to me, because there wasn't any meat on the ribs, but that's a different conversation) which made their car flip over, this fish would have made that rack of ribs flip over. I had the HEAD -- just the head -- for lunch the next day, and was stuffed afterward. Just in case you don't believe me, here is the head. That's just the head. Imagine the rest of the fish extending back from it. That's what we were served at our table. That was the "medium". Yeah, I guess you COULD eat that if you were REAL hungry. And if you were also FIVE PEOPLE.

Alright! Enough about all you. Back to me.

Which is what I did. Cleaned out the car, took it to get a car wash (thus completing my "car" task on the Goals website, which, too bad I'm not doing it anymore). Grocery shopping, got home, then walked along the marina to Fisherman's Village, a little collection of stores and food serving establishments. I stopped by the fast-food Thai window for some pad thai, which was remarkably good.

Then I stared longingly at the little 14' boats that you can rent there, wishing I was out there. Wishing I was in one of 'em, practicing my newfound sailing knowledge and letting the wind take me where it may. Wish I was... in the...

Wait. I have money with me! What the hell, right?

So I spent the next two hours out in the harbor, zipping to and fro in my little Capri, and god damn if that wasn't the best time ever.

Right there, that's a perfect day. But I still had half of the day to fill up, so I went swimming, did some work for the previous employer I've mentioned a few times before, took another walk around the town and along the beach, and now I'm sitting here waiting for Adam to show up, cuz we're gonna go to Typhoon, my favorite restaurant ever, and have the best meal ever, and then hopefully get to watch planes for a while.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, which I was able, through finagling and half-truths, to get all to myself, despite the insistent protestations of friends and family. Look, people. I love you to death, you know that. But the thing I like the most is still just hanging out at #309, in my own little paradigm, my own little shiny, breezy world, with my cats, and my pool, and my beach, and my hot sauce, and my websites and that's it. So give me a day to do that, and give thanks for them. That was today.

Speaking of cats, though, I have a message for mine: Knock it off.

An interesting thing, having reliable cats. Every morning, I wake up, and the boy cat is already on my face. So I yell "C'mere girl", and she lumbers up from wherever she was, hops up on the bed and takes residence on the other side of my face.

This morning, I yell "c'mere girl", and nothing happens. I try again. Louder. Then in a different tone. Then I try whistling. Yet the other side of my face remained cat-less. I knew something was up.

I got out of bed, and saw what I figured would happen one day: They had managed to knock the screen door out of its rails, and it was resting, useless, against the side of the sliding-glass door. And no girl cat to be found.

The first thing you always check is three floors down, to make sure there isn't a grey/red splat of exploded cat on the pavement below. We were clear there. Whew. But looking to the left and right, across my neighbor's balconies, no other gray cats were evident.

Then I lean over my right-hand neighbor's wall, and there she is, just sitting in the corner of the balcony, looking at me and going "Mewww!??" She jumped back right quick and I scolded her endlessly. That's when I figured they'd all learned their lesson, so I could finally start letting them out on the balcony, which is good because it'll save property damage to the screen door and olfactory damage because I could move the pan outdoors.

Everything went well for about 25 seconds, went they both jumped into the other neighbor's balcony and started "playing" (read: hissing and yapping) at that neighbors cats through their screen door.

After 15 minutes of cajoling, bribing, and extremely foul language, I was able to get them back indoors, but that's it. Cats, you are officially on warning: Quit being like cats. I can take only so much.

After that, I spent the rest of the day doing the aforementioned swimming, and also reading psychology websites! I know, right? Party time! Sure, you make your fun, but if you can do better than 34 out of 36 on the Relational Frame Theory Tutorial Quiz at http://relationalframetheory.com, then be my guest:

bparrish99, 

Thank you for taking the online tutorial 'An Introduction to Relational 
Frame Theory.' 
This email confirms that you completed the tutorial quiz with a score 
of 34 out of 36. 
Your highest score on the quiz so far is 34. 
Your completion confirmation number is 43198389.

Remember to visit http://www.relationalframetheory.com to learn more 
about RFT and its implications for psychology!

I woke up today at 3:30 AM. I drifted in and out of sleep until 4:00 AM. Then I was up, and up for good.

I arrived in the office at 6:00 AM, two hours before the next earliest contestant would arrive. I got every personal to-do list item done, and every work to-do list item done, over the next 12 hours. My life became a blur of crossed out, checked off items. In essence, I started at 4, and didn't stop until right after I'm done writing this update, which with any luck will be in the next 45 seconds, because that's about when my head's gonna flop over, unconscious, onto the floor. My torso and neck will still be upright, sitting at the computer, but my head will be on the floor. And unconscious.

Why was I unable to sleep past 3:30?

On 10/2, I sat on the beach and wrote a list of goals in a little notebook. I've carried the notebook around every day since then, jotting down notes, doing little daily lists, doing revisions to the original list, and essentially using it up for all it was worth. But now it's a tattered mess, unbefitting such an important list as my personal goals. So I went through the entire notebook and converted the entire thing to a website, which I'll link here for the first and only time, because, really, what business is it of yours, but I worked so hard on it, and I think it looks so good, maybe it'll inspire one of you losers out there to get your own stupid life in order, through the magic of HTML.

So, that's it. Another lovely weekend in paradise.

And now, time to go back to... work.

I made my way back to 309, wiped off the sand, and spent the next couple hours at the computer, acting all professional and setting up my home environment so I can do work if I ever need to, but more likely doing what I did, which was to create a webpage that said "fart".

For dinner, I headed out to Typhoon, one of my all-time local favorites, and a place I hadn't been since before I left. I ordered the Trout, which I had never had before, and to my great surprise and joy, it was served MISCHY-STYLE! Oh lordy, was it great. I ate the eyeballs and everything.

Then I went out back. "Out back" at Typhoon, though, is a little walkway right along runway 21 of the Santa Monica Municipal Airport. The place I used to fly out of. I sat there under the light of the moon and the silently rotating green/white flash of the beacon, watched a few planes come in, heard the rrrt of the rubber hitting the pavement, heard the rumble of the engines, and that's when I made a decision:

You call this taking a fucking week off? Fucking 14-hour workdays, fucking emissions testing and long, interminable trips to the fucking DMV? This is taking a fucking week off? FUCK THIS SHIT. Now I gotta fucking take ANOTHER week off to recover from THIS fucking week.

What can I tell you? Well, I went to the goddamn office all fucking day, and then I came home and did the goddamn DMV paperwork and then got my goddamn license plates, which are "5RON066", which I don't like, because every fucking douchebag motherfucker piece of shit scumsucking dickbag fuckup cockslobbering shitstorm of an asshole I ever met was named "Ron", and now so is my fucking car.

{ paragraph deleted }

GOD.

Alright, that's about it for this update. I'm going to be removing the above paragraph after a couple days so there aren't any unfortunate Google-incidences, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Before I go, though, why don't we do a fucking BDC so we can find out how fucking GOOD I FEEL RIGHT NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS.

The effect was: After a vigorous bike ride to work, apparently waking up the sleeping giants within, I spent most of the Monday workday in the office bathroom. Seven times, I went in there, and five of them before noon. Seriously. Make a pit stop, get back to the desk to check email, maybe a quick meeting, then right back to it. Bing bang boom.

The good part is, everything seems to be back on track. A little more energy, a little more... reliable routine with regard to the water closet. Everything's fine.

The bad part is, after my Monday marathon, the office bathroom is still shut down for repairs and for the health department inspection.

I biked home that night in blackness, and in fog so thick that you couldn't see fifteen feet in front of you. Scary, dangerous, yes. But if you ever get a chance to bike through Venice in the dark of night with fog like clam chowder, please try this. It's about as close to a hallunicatory drug experience as I think you can get without taking anything harder than Diet Coke. You can't see anything specific. All you see are shapes... and colors... strange, moving, glowing, amorphous, homeless shapes scatting about. And weird, foreign sounds, echoing throughout the void. Truly an experience not to be missed. Or to be avoided by the plague, depending on how much you value your personal safety. Good times, though.

Then it was Tuesday, and I just went to work and worked all day and got stressed out and left and then came home and went to the pool, and now I'm cooking some chickens in the oven, stuffed with the first harvest from my balcony herb garden. Cilantro, parsley, chives, thyme, all mashed up with olive oil and garlic and slathered all over and inside that shit. This is very exciting. I'm sure there will be pictures.

That's it for now. Last night I wrote to myself, and I wrote, "cooool off". This has been such a straight-ahead, go-go-go stretch for me that I felt I was starting to wear myself out mentally (and physically, it would seem). So I put the to-do lists and the cognitive therapy books and all the rest of it away, and just said, hey. Look at these three months. I've done pretty damn well by myself. Why don't I just take a week off. Not off work, but off... you know... plunging ahead. Everyone needs to rest. So this week, I'll rest.

This weekend was just fine. I went to the famous LA Farmer's Market, where I found a shop which sells nothing but hot sauces. Then I ate hot sauces. Also I sailed, and went to the beach at least once, and went to the pool at least three times. Also... also I filled up the gas tank and did laundry. And... watered the herbs.

Alright, so, a huge weekend, this was not. But dammit, I'm tired. And in fact, writing this right now at 6 PM on Sunday, I am extremely tired, so much so that I am nearly certain there's something physiologically wrong with me. Cuz, damn. Nobody with such a vibrant zest for life as I have should ever be this tired. This week, I'm going to shake up my routine a little, see if we can't get back on the beam, energy-wise. Because this will not stand. This aggression will not stand.

Alright. So. That's it. Three months. A great adventure. Let's keep it rockin' in the new year, shall we?

I went to the pool, threw some chicken in the oven, and took a Benadryl. Party time!

So tired. So very tired. I think this weekend, I will cherish as much as the last one, but only because I plan on sleeping the entire time.

So, you know... the next couple of updates might not be that spectacular. But hell, I'm not doing this website for you in the first place. Every time I try to do a website for you, it turns into a huge debacle, lots of angry shouting, lots of hurt feelings, and everyone walks away under a dark cloud. No more! No more, I say!

The chicken should be just about done. It is chicken which has been marinating for 72 hours in Ben's Famous Inedible Jerk Sauce, the most incendiary substance known to man. I will be eating it in a few minutes, and will probably not survive. I'd ask you to come by and feed the cats once in a while, but they'll probably eat whatever chicken is left over, and then they, too, will die.

Now, when I got home, my girl cat came right to the door, and she was screaming. "Mew, mew!! MEW!" she yelped.

Long-time readers may remember that the last time I had a girl cat come up to me and start yelling at me when I walked in the door was, shall we say, a somewhat unfortunate situation. So I immediately became scared. Moreso when I couldn't find the boy cat.

I turned the corner to find the bedroom door closed. So what happened was: My palm tree, which I keep in the bedroom so the cats can knock it over every thirty minutes, had fallen over, and closed the door (and also made a sound) while it fell. And thus, the terrible twosome spent the entire (long) day apart, separated by one inch of particle board.

A nice, calm, eminently tolerable day. What could be better?

Here's an update on a couple other things, while I'm here:

• You'll notice that nothing has happened yet over at CT Galaxy. I warned you that this could end up being the case. It is still in the plans to get back to it, but as you can see by reading this site, there's been little time and/or energy left over for that sort of thing. I will definitely try to do something with it this week. Or maybe weekend. Or perhaps next week. Or in 2006.
• A friend asked me how I was feeling. I said, "good", and then I expounded on why. Why should I feel so good now, versus all the other times, when I didn't? Well, the answers are plentiful, of course, but I will tell you that the one overriding feeling, the one primary difference in moment-to-moment living for me is that life... damn, how did I say this before... life no longer feels like waiting around for life to start. It feels like, this is life, and a pretty damn pleasant one at that. There is a peace in not always walking around wanting more, being dissatisfied, being discontent, wondering how it could have been. This is how it is, and I'm in a routine right now that I feel like I could stay in forever, and still be happy. I feel, more or less, like I "arrived", and it feels like a comfy warm blanket that I'm wrapped up in all day long. Of course, there's plenty more to do, but now it feels as if it's all gravy. It's just... peaceful. (You know, most of the time. Within reason. I haven't achieved total enlightenment yet, believe me.)

The other thing is the aches which I feel all over my person. I fell off my bike two weeks ago, and pulled something in my side. For a week, it got better. Now it's getting worse. So, that bites. Besides that, my legs ache, probably from so much biking, and my head hurts from where the cats jump on it.

So this weekend, I did two sailing lessons, cleaned the place to a sparkly shine, went to the pool a bunch of times, biked a bunch of times, went to a Clipper game with my friend Beaux, from waaaay back in the early days of SNT, for you old-schoolers out there. We stayed until halftime, then went back to his place and drank beer and conducted a hot sauce tasting. Also on the docket were organizing some paperwork, playing with the kittens, tending to the withering herb garden, having breakfast over football at Mo's on Sunday morning, finishing up some work for my previous employer, aaaand... well, I think that's about it, but I feel refreshed, revived, renewed, and most of all, very tired and achy.

If anyone wants to use my apartment, I'll FedEx you the keys. Tell the cats I miss them. Tell the hot chick in 308 that I think she's hot.

Anyhoo, now we're back at it. I'll catch you up on my BDC score from last week, which was a frightening (well, it is Halloween) 7, a jump of over 130% from the previous weeks. All of the new categories I got "hits" on, however, dealt with things like motivation and being friggin' exhausted all the goddamn time. I chalk this up to not being able to do my bike rides (because of the injury I sustained falling off said bike the previous weekend), the stress and long hours of my work situation, and also being licked on the face by my cats all night instead of sleeping.

I expect this week's score to be better. However, if that is going to come true, then I simply must wrap up this entry, take my Z and my B(enadryl), and wait for the soothing respite of precious sleep to wash over me.

Now I'm home, and I'm just gonna make dinner, maybe work on ctgalaxy a little (but maybe not), and just kinda sit here until I fall asleep.

Let's begin by cooking brunch again, and getting oil burns on half of my fucking left hand! However, the end result was this meal, so I think we can all agree it was worth it.

Then we continue to our sailing lesson, where I gracefully attempt to get from the deck of the boat to the dock by trying to lift my leg over the lifelines and then step directly down onto the dock, which is a great idea, except it requires that your leg be approximately seven feet long, which mine is not, and thus was nearly torn from my person. Fortunately, no long-lasting damage, except in the unlikely event that I decided to have children, I think I may have to adopt.

Let's wrap up, then, on our bike ride home, where I take the turn onto Fiji Dr. a little too quick, and do a faceplant right into the street, to the amusement of the onlooking traffic.

Every part of my person aches! Once again, I think I need a weekend to relax from my weekend.

And I loved every minute of it.

Then I came home and unloaded everything, at which point I planted the new herb (basil), cleaned up the dish which the cats broke while I was doing so, and then cooked this for a terribly delicious, artistic brunch!

After plugging in the new hard drive and making sure it worked, I headed out for Sailing Lesson #2, which was awesome! We finally got to get out on the ocean, and... whew, it sure is different out there than tooling around the harbor. It was like a roller coaster! I thought at one point we were going to tip over, but the instructor just laughed. And today, we got to practice sailing "single-handed", which is good, because the ultimate purpose of this is for me to get a boat and head out on the ocean all day, with nobody else on the boat. Screw all of you. Thank you.

Then I came back home (after scheduling my next lesson for tomorrow), got the process of reinstalling started, and while I waited for that, cooked this for an even more delicious (yet similarly themed) dinner.

And that brings us up to 20 minutes ago, when I sat down to begin writing this entry on my fresh, clean laptop, and then...

BOOM!!! An earthquake hit, essentially right under my apartment building!

The rest of the day was spent at work. Like, I got in at 7:15 (after a lovely, early-morning bike ride), and didn't leave until 9:30 PM. And the hours in between were not particularly productive, and were particularly stressful, with the boss standin' over me, poking and prodding. So, much like Tuesday, why don't we go ahead and just write Wednesday off as well.

• Got up, couldn't bike because it was raining (and I had left my bike at work, since it was raining yesterday.)
• Went to the car, and -- click -- nothing. Dead battery. Because I'd left the cabin light on.
• Got a jump from a coworker and made it into work (after stopping at a gas station and having trouble getting the pump to work... see? Just a little off.)
• Worked a long day, full of problems, full of bosses getting mad, full of not quite being able to get done what I wanted.
• No Diet Coke in the office fridge.
• They finally got some Diet Coke in there, and I spilled half of mine trying to get the bike in the car to take home.
• Came home to go swimming, and the pool was cold.
• Running out of food for the cats, which they hate.
• I give the cats catnip, and they turn away.
• I go to take my Zoloft, and realize that my stash at home is out, and I left the rest of it at work. So I'm missing a dose tonight. Dun dun DUNNNnnnn.
• It's still cloudy and gray and drab. In SoCal, for god's sake.
• I dunno, see what I'm saying? Everything's just a little off.

But, if you insist on putting a positive spin on this (which I do), all of these off things happened, and I still feel great! I'm just so happy to be here, and have this apartment, and have these cats, and have this job, and have this bike, and have this pool, and all the other stuff, that no minor annoyances like the above can knock me off the beam. I am strong. I am resilient.

Let me say this about that: Sailing is the greatest thing that there is, by a factor of ten billiondy zillion. It was only the first lesson, and my first two hours on water, but that's it. I'm sold. Most things I do, I can't wait for them to end, so I can say I did it. This, I coulda done alllll day long. And I will. This I vow. Now. Who's coming with me?

Anyhoo, then biked back, and set up the ol' herb garden, which I just sort of fumbled at and made it up as I went along, because 1) I've never done it before, and 2) I had no idea how to do it. So, we'll see. Either I'll wake up tomorrow and my balcony will be a lush green nightmare of herbal infestation, a la "Creepshow", or they'll all be dead. Which is just as well, because as fast as I go through cilantro, I'd need about three hundred and fifty plants just to keep up with the demand.

Then after that, I began cooking dinner (green chile stew, Albuquerque style), and then while that was going, gave myself a haircut, and started the laundry, and then went swimming for a half hour. (Note: leaving the kitchen to go swimming for a half hour is not recommended for novice cooks. Please do not try this at home.) Then I had dinner, which was good, but not great. Perhaps I erred in the recipe, or perhaps it's just not my favorite thing. I think the chiles I got were sub-par, frankly. But that's neither here nor there. It was saved in no small fashion by the grilled tortillas which I now use in every single recipe. Here's what you do, you take your little grill pan, and you throw a flour tortilla on it until it gets little char lines on it. Then turn it 90 degrees to get the crosshatch. Then flip it, and it puffs up right away, which is cool to watch. Then crosshatch that side, and set aside. Takes a plain tortilla and just makes it a chewy, crunchy, delicious treat from heaven, which goes with everything! But enough about tortillas.

Then I cleaned up the kitchen, and sat down here and wrote this. After this I'm going to sleep for about three days.

I think it's safe to say that this was my busiest, most active, most... rip-roarin' weekend ever!

The interesting part here is...

On October 2, I sat on the beach and made a list of various things I wanted to do. Sailing, surfing, getting a grill being three of them. But after a long, tough week at work, I got up today, saw the list, and just went "ughghh". My enthusiasm had most assuredly waned.

Come on. Don't give in. Just pick one thing and try to make the tiniest bit of progress on it. Surfing. Go buy -- hell, just go look for a wetsuit.

As you saw, even getting to the surf shop took a couple tries. But, I finally made it there, and was so happy that I was able to extricate myself from the suit after 10 minutes of struggling that I just bought the thing.

And then it was on. Normally I would have said, "Okay, I made a little progress on one thing, so now I can go home and relax for the rest of the weekend." But now it was on. Now I wanted to do everything. On a day when I didn't even plan on doing anything, I ended up annoyed that after getting the suit and signing up for sailing lessons and shopping for a grill, I wasn't gonna be able to fire that badboy up to cook my carne asada. Gimme an inch, I'll take a mile.

Whatever. That's a hell of a day. I liked it. See you on the boat tomorrow.

Now, let's do a BDC! The number is still 4, and I would imagine that we'll be plateaued at that number for quite a while. The scores, again, which make up the number are all in the realm of self-conceptualization (self-esteem, adequacy/inadequacy, guilt/shame, etc.) which sprout from my most deeply entrenched "core beliefs", as we say in the CT business. Mind you, these numbers are way, way better than they were a few months ago, but when you've spent your whole life feeling defective and unacceptable, those can be some hard habits to break. I can still feel it creeping in from time to time. Luckily, I have such meticulously trained powers of cognitive restructuring now, this feeling rarely lasts more than a few seconds. A minute, tops. Which is nice.

Nothing new yet on CT Galaxy, because I've been busting ass at my new job this week, and when I get home, all I wanna do is hit the pool, have a bite, listen to the ballgame, do a few Sudokus, and hit the sheets. Once things lighten up here at the ol' office (which may be never, based on what I've seen so far), then we'll get some traction on this.

The first stage involves, as I mentioned yesterday, identifying these thoughts you're having which are screwing you up without you knowing about it. Some people find this process very difficult, and learning how to do it can often take weeks, or months. Some people find it easier. I found it as easy as breathing, once I was taught what to look for. Once I read, "you have concrete thoughts which cause your bad feelings", a little lightbulb went on in my head, and it was like, snap, I got it! I was 50% better, emotionally, fifteen minutes after I was taught what CT is, and how it works, no lie. That's another benefit of the cognitive model of psychotherapy, which is that it generally works much faster than most other currently accepted models. Often, patients require no more than 10 or 12 sessions. Sometimes more, but sometimes even less.

Anyhoo, then you get to work on the process of identifying the misconceptions inherent in the thoughts you have identified. This is a little trickier, because some of your thoughts reflect beliefs which are so concretely embraced (regardless of their correlation with reality) that you just don't wanna give them up. Again, this is tougher for some folks than others. And again, in my case, I found it relatively easy, because the thoughts were so obviously screwed up that it was child's play to reform them into more realistic conceptions, and because I attached no inherent value to them. I was more than happy to give them up, since a greater sense of esteem, contentment, and peace was mine in exchange.

At this point, I'd identified the thoughts, and knew how to reform them. But it still required (as I wrote about a year ago on the same topic) constant vigilance, as the grotesque, distorted thoughts would keep coming at just about the same rate, so I had to continue swatting them away like foul balls, nearly continuously throughout the day. This was tiring, but again, work that I found well worth doing, as the payoff was such a delight. But tiring, still.

Now, it seems, I'm entering the best part of the process, where these reformed thoughts have really started to internalize. Check this out:

Situation: (pretty much anything)

• Pre-CT Thought Process: I suck.
• Apres-CT Thought Process: I suck. Wait, no I don't.
• Mid-Internalization-Step Thought Process (I ARE HERE): Heh. I kinda don't suck, maybe.
• Apres-Internalization Thought Process: LOL.

A very productive weekend is now behind me. My furniture showed up Friday, so Saturday was spent unpacking and arranging, and also putting the bike together, and also discovering that the bike was broken, and also taking the bike to the bike shop, and also unpacking more stuff from the car, and also getting the internet hooked up, while still leaving time to swim and write up a budget and go get a pizza. (Hank's Pizza, on Pershing -- excellent!) Then Sunday was busy unpacking more stuff, and also doing laundry, and also picking up the bike from the bike shop, and also cleaning the bathroom, and also having a couple friends over to go swimming, and also taking the bike for a "test-ride" to my place of work to see how long it was going to take to do the commute on two wheels.

So, that leaves us here, on Monday. And all of the above most likely leaves you asking, "Ben, what's your secret? You went from, in your own words, a morbidly depressed sack of turd, to a raging bundle of energy in just a couple short months! I wish *I* knew how to do that. Can you tell me?" Well, first, as the title of this webpage would suggest, go get some antidepressants. Any kind will do. They all have essentially the same chance of working.

But the real key to success lies in changing your thought processes. This would be the simplest thing in the world, except most often, the thoughts which make people upset are ones which they are not aware they are having. So, first, we must identify the thought processes, pinpoint their inaccuracies, and then set them straight. Enter cognitive therapy, my Lord and Savior.

This, then, brings us to my latest new project, which I may or may not work on, and which I may or may not finish even if I do work on it. It's called CT Galaxy, and it's a new website which will be growing (maybe) in the coming weeks. The purpose of the site is twofold:

1. Educate the interested (or even just the curious) about the theory and process of cognitive therapy.
2. Provide interactive exercises to facilitate the various techniques which have proven most effective. In other words, instead of doing your homework on paper, you can do it on the website, and it'll track it for you, and make suggestions, and generally help the process along however possible

Right now, of course, it's just a smartass filler page. But I'll update you here as (or if) things start to happen over there.

Which is all fine and dandy, because as I approached my new home, this place, any semblance of worry just drained out of my toes.

Let me explain how great this place is.

You could add all the greatness from all of the other 15+ places I've lived together, and... well, okay, if you did THAT, it'd probably be better than this place, that's not really a fair comparison. But it's great. Ocean view, heated pool, quirky, fun community, salty smell of sea air wafting through the place 24 hours a day, faint rumble of waves crashing on the beach, a mere 200 feet or so away -- god, I'm getting all goosebumpy just typing about it. It's just so wonderful I can't even talk English good no mores. Wow. And I don't even have my furniture back yet. I'm sleeping on the goddamn floor in an empty room, and it's the most comfortable apartment I've ever had. And did I mention the awesome pool? You know how some "heated" pools generally mean "heated up enough so it's not, technically, frozen"? This badboy is heated to the point where if you get in it, straight out of the jacuzzi (I mentioned the jacuzzi, didn't I?) it STILL feels warm.

4

This, if I haven't mentioned it before, is within the range that Burns labels "normal and happy". I've never been normal and happy before in my life. Happy, occasionally. Normal, even less occasionally. But never both at the same time.

The impulse is to attribute this primarily to the new digs, and how pleased I am with them. There may be some validity there, but keep in mind that the questions Burns asks are "are you experiencing low self esteem? self-blame? self-criticism? loss of pleasure? feelings of inadequacy?" Not: "do you like where you're living?" I've proven many times in the past that I have the ability to be miserable anywhere, regardless of how nice it is. The natural corollary is that I also have the ability to be happy anywhere. While my current situation certainly may have facilitated transition into that most blessed of emotional states, I do not believe it is the sole, or even primary cause. The gradual lowering of the number since 8/12 speaks to a positive trend, one which feeds back on itself in productive ways (much like depression, left untreated, must surely get worse, as its devilish cycle of negativity propels itself along.) Let's see the pattern, looking back through this website:

54 -> 30 -> 16 -> 9 -> 7 -> 4.

Seemed only an inevitability. It may just be a happy (in every sense of the word) coincidence that it hit there at the same time that I landed in such a rewarding environment. Or not. Or somewhat.

Who cares. It's all means to an end. Good means. Good end.

This is a task I will call "retroactive cognitive therapy". I'm pretty on top of fixing my depression in the present. Now I need to go back and fix it in the past. Only then, do I think I'll truly be free of the chains shackling me to the dark years behind me.

Because, as they said in the movie...

But hey, you only live once, right? And you never know if the next day will be your last.

The rest of the day I spent poolside with my man Adam, soakin' up the last of the CA rays that I could before my trip home tomorrow to start packing up. Can't wait to be back, that's all I can tell you. Can't wait to be back.

About all the energy I had, I spent at lunch, walking down to the Borders and buying two books:

Beginner's guide to sailing. Beginner's guide to surfing.

Not in any metaphorical, figurative way, either. Not in terms of emotional transfigurement or some grand epiphany.

Not in some metaphysical, Peking Butterfly chaos-theory inspired jigsaw puzzle ("If I hadn't stopped for that cup of coffee, I would have missed that light, and not seen the...")

No, I was right there on the cusp of death, when it switches from some vague mythical concept to a definable reality. It was right there. If it were to happen again, I'd give myself about a 20% chance to still be here.

Enjoy, won't you?

---

I like me an afterwork swim in the ocean. You know that about me. So why would today be any different?

I get down there, switch into my "swimming trunks", and head down along the north end of the Venice pier. Oooh, the sea was angry that day, my friends! I had come to understand, though, that as nasty as the waves look, once you get out there, they're really not all that bad. Plus, the goal is just to get past 'em anyway, so you can splash around and relax in peace, away from the tumultuous crashing of the breakers.

I get about knee-deep, and notice that something definitely is different today. There's a lot more power in the undertow, and once the crashing waves reached me, they had a lot of power, and a lot of WATER with 'em -- I went from knee-deep to chin-deep in a second. Then it drained off again, and we begun the procedure anew. Fun fun fun. But I'd really like to get past all that.

It begins to die down a little, so I paddle quickly out beyond the breakers. So great. SO GREAT, man. I love it so much out there. There's just such a feeling of peace, of Zen one-ness with the world, all that jazz. Nothing better. (And given the previously-discussed side effects of Z, there actually IS nothing better right now.)

I splash around for 15-20 out there, and then start to feel my "core temperature" go down. Happy Hour at the Whaler was winding down at the same time, so it was definitely time to call it a day. I begin paddling back in.

I enjoy that process. Get to do (or at least try) a little bodysurfing, get to ride the rollercoaster in for a while until you feel terra firma and can trudge back in.

Fortunately, the surf had seemed to die down again just as I was coming back. What fabulous timing!

As I'm swimming, and swimming, and swimming, though, it feels like I'm not really get any closer. I can see the beach 50 feet away, but it never seemed to go down any further than that. Looking to my right, using the pier pilings as guides, I can see that I'm pretty much stuck. I'll go forward when the waves hit, then backwards immeditely after. A zero-sum game.

Then I look behind me, and it's starting up big again. And my man CRASHES down about twenty feet behind me, and when it hits, it knocks me for a loop. I mean, the first hit knocks you down, then the rush afterward just pummels you pushes you to the bottom, spins you around. That was a new experience. I struggled to come back up, and did, and caught my breath (and spit out some water), and went, "huh, that sucked. I better really get outta here."

Fortunately, I could finally feel the sand under my feet, so I was saved. Good thing, too, because another one of those monsters was coming in.

But... FUCK. The undertow was so strong that I lost my footing. And here we go again. WHAM... spin... choke... struggle to the surface, gasp, cough.

Now it's REALLY starting to suck. I find a foothold again, but then just as quickly lose it. And now they're just relentless.

The next one that hits is the first time I run out of air and breathe saltwater.

That's when the scales tipped, and I went from thinking, "Jeez, I can see how people could get in real trouble out here! Wait till I tell folks about it!" to "This is how I die."

The cycle repeats -- I get above water for a few seconds, gasp, cough, struggle to get enough air for the next one, and then WHAM.

WHAM.

WHAM. With each one, I'm feeling my likelihood of survival dropping in 10% increments. 70% chance of making it. 60%. 50%. 40%.

The last one, I breathed a lungful of water, got back up top and noticed that now I was hyperventilating. I was becoming lightheaded. The concept of passing out and being done with it was a real, tangible presence. 30%... 20%...

That's when through my panic-stricken, salt-encrusted eyes, I saw the dude in the red trunks start sloughing out to me.

The Z must be working. No shame, no embarrassment. Just effusive, blind gratitude.

He got to me, gave me one end of a life preserver with handles on both sides, and pulled me in. We got up on the beach finally, I'm belching sand and saltwater, in between thanking him and shaking his hand. And he's asking me if I know what day it is. I say "Wednesd-- wait, no, Thursday!"

It appeared he was ready to launch into a whole series of evaluatory questions/procedures, when he noticed that there was someone else, a little ways down the way, who the boats were already tending to. See, I'm not the only dumbass out there.

I trudge, beaten, shaken, and bewildered, back down the beach to where I'd left my stuff. I had been carried about a quarter-mile down the coast, in all that excitement. My headache is massive. I'm spitting and coughing up ocean the whole way. I get back to my car, get my phone, and just start calling people.

(Then, of course, I hit Happy Hour at the Whaler.)

The epilogue is, I go back out on the pier after dinner, and EVERYONE's there, lined up along the north side, watching the surfers go at it. In the year I lived by the beach, I never saw the waves that immense. They shook the pier. I talked with a guy there who was a hardcore surfer, and he said he'd lived in Venice for six years and never seen anything like it. He said he heard the lifeguard trucks driving all day long, back and forth, back and forth, saving the lives of dimwitted Virginia country boys who don't know enough to stay the hell out of the water.

Since then, I've been all around town, this side to that... and I haven't worn underwear since five minutes after I got into my room.

What a fool I've been.

I lived in Santa Monica for a year. 100 feet from the beach. I went swimming in a pool zero times. I went swimming in the ocean zero times.

Since I got here this afternoon, I've done both of those things... twice.

This is as good a day as I've ever had in which I did not 1) have sex, or 2) earn my private pilot's license.

After my second jaunt into the ocean, I walked up the street to find an airy beach bar, where I had peel 'n' eat shrimp in a hot, spicy broth, with a cold beer, sand still falling off every part of my person every time I moved, and I just... Well, for a moment, I just wish it could have always been like this. But would that have been the case, I don't think I'd be able to appreciate it as much as I did today.

No matter, I had mainly stuff to do around the house to get ready for my trip to LA, so it didn't bother me quite as much that I was only able to keep my eyes open about one second for every five, just enough to keep from running into any of your harder walls.

...with female human.

Mitigating my anxiety was the fact that the dinner was going to be at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, which if you know me at all, you realize that I wish to be buried underneath the broiler at one of their worldwide locations. So either way, I knew this was gonna be a good dinner. Hell, I could screw up, yammer on about nonsense, spout gibberish, sit there like a stone, and generally make a fool of myself in front of female human one way or the other, and the likelihood was that it was still going to be a good dinner.

Thing is, though -- oh, wait. First, I need to say that tonight, I let myself "slip" a little, and tried seeing what it was like going to a Ruth's Chris and really getting the full experience, as a "normal" person might have. Like, get a (single) cocktail to start. Then a (single) glass of wine during the meal. Then a (single) after-dinner aperatif. I'm home now, and I have no compulsion to drink anymore, which is a lovely thing. However, those three drinks totally did me in. In fact, the first two did me in. What a friggin' lightweight I've become! And I'm happy about that.

So, the thing is, though -- with a few drinks in me, and feeling good besides, I did seem to yammer on about nonsense. From time to time, I did spout a little gibberish. I might have even started to make a fool out of myself. But not once was I ashamed of doing it. I meant everything I said, and it felt good to just express myself to someone, without fear of reprisal, without fear of judgement, and it was just great. Female human listened, and empathized, and told me her own stories, and we nodded and laughed, and it just seemed so very nice to feel that comfortable laying bare to some fairly raw nerves there, right over our spinach au gratin and garlic-infused mashed potatoes.

And so, for the first time in my history of going to Ruth's Chris, over many years, over many miles, and in too many locations to count, this was the very first time that the meal wasn't the best part.

Then I got right back and headed to the pool -- which is closing for the season today, so it's a good thing I started doing this when I did. Fortunately, I'm moving in a couple weeks to a place where it's always pool season. Oh, and get this, after I was done in the pool, I just laid in the sun (shirt still off, is the point of this) on one of the poolside chairs for another half hour.

This day may not sound that riveting in the retelling ("big deal, you rowboated and went to the pool"), but I ask you to keep in mind that this would have been virtually impossible a month ago. It simply would never, ever have happened. And now it did.

Now, I don't know exactly what to attribute this to, but during the swim, and several times afterward, I began to feel dizzy and detached. Additionally, for most of the evening, I felt dead tired and completely "out of it". Couldn't think, could barely talk, and was just struggling to stay awake. It felt like the original side effect of the Z, except intensified threefold. I think with all of the physical activity of the past three days, and the nearly constant exposure to formerly (and let's face it, currently) stressful situations, the ol' body just said "yeah, you know what? Forget this. I'm outta here."

Stuff #1: The movers came over to give me an estimate on moving my stuff. It came to over TWICE what it cost to bring here, and way more than I'd guessed. So that, along with the lease break fee from two days ago, and I was right on the edge of turning into Worrywart Central.

Stuff #2: My "goodbye lunch" with coworkers. Let's call them, coworkers #1, #2, and #3. This was potentially stressful because of reasons which will become clearer below.

Stuff #3: This was my last day at the office, so there was a lot of (always potentially stressful) social interaction, as people came by to say goodbye, and as I turned in badges and computers and stuff like that. Plus, as you're walking out the door, that's when it sinks in that there's no going back, and this move really is gonna happen.

Stuff #4: I've been pretty much gaga over coworker #3 (see above) ever since I met her, a feeling that I've struggled mightily to conceal over the past four months. But since I'm heading out, I got a little selfish and finally wrote her an email just saying how great I thought she was. Thinking about writing it was stressful. Writing it was stressful. Hitting "send" was stressful. Wondering what (if any) reply might be coming my way was (and is) stressful. Still, it felt good to finally get off my chest.

Stuff #5: Called the female human I spoke of a few updates down to set up a day at Kings Dominion (local theme park) tomorrow.

Stuff #6: Pool visit #3! Just call me SwimFan!

So, that's a lot of stuff! But, I'm proud to announce that I came through it all relatively unscathed. Thank you, Zoloft! (Or not, if it actually is having no physiological effect, and I'm just doing this myself. In that case, SCREW YOU, Zoloft!)

That is when I did something truly astonishing.

I went to the pool.

A little background here, for those of you who may not have fully realized the depth and intensity of my abnormalities: I never go to the pool. The last time I was in a pool was in late 2000, when I had first moved to California. The time before that was, I can't even remember. Years ago. Not because I don't like to swim -- I love to swim! But because of all the phobias I've garnered over these tortured years, the one which is far and away the most intense, and the most bewildering, has been going to the pool.

Why?

Well, as $10,000 of plastic surgery last year might have indicated, I am simply afraid of taking my shirt off. Not afraid of water, not afraid of chlorine, not afraid of getting an inner tube to the face. Just cannot take my shirt off in front of other people.

Last year around this time, I purchased swimming trunks, in a determined effort to face this particular fear once and for all. I never used them once. Nice try.

About a month ago, I bought another pair, and it too languished about, pricetag still dangling from the waistband, taunting me, haunting me. But call it boredom, call it desperation, or call it Zoloft, there I was, beach towel in hand, padding across the parking lot, toward the most feared of all hellish lairs known to mankind: The community pool.

My breath came short and quick, walking there. I was terrified. Anxiety doubled and redoubled seemingly with every foot closer I got.

Then I realized I had no idea how to get in, so I ended up walking around the clubhouse building, bewildered, looking for the entrance, which I eventually did find, to unquestionably mixed feelings.

Today, thankfully, the vengeful gods smiled upon me just a bit, as there were only three other people in the pool area. Crawl before you can walk. If there were happy couples and large families all splashing around having fun, I'm afraid that might have just been too much. But today, there was just the lifeguard, and two kids playin' at one end of the pool.

And friends, as I am my witness, I got in that pool and swam and splashed around for 20 minutes, and got back out, and walked back home. The adrenaline rush after I walked back into my apartment was so intense that it took nearly a half an hour to stop shaking. Don't you know, if I had had any alcohol up in that apartment, it would not have been there anymore. But eventually I calmed down of my own accord, and just basked in the afterglow of my magnificent accomplishment. That's right. I went swimming.

However, if you'll notice, I did that for last year's anniversary post, and everything I wrote there applies just as much, if not moreso, today.

(I better go back and read it over again, though, just to make sure that this is true.) Huh. Yeah! It's pretty much still dead-on.

This was a fair representation of everything I'm afraid of being compressed into a single event and shoved all in my face at the same time. And while I won't go so far as to say I didn't have my moments of "what do I say?" and "man I'm an idiot" and "that didn't even make any sense", it was a fair sight less traumatic and more enjoyable, both during and afterward, than it would have been three weeks prior. So, that was good.

Plus, she gave me a home-grown tomato at the end! And it was delicious!

So, you know, that anxiety book came along at just about the right time.

Otherwise, I felt okay most of the day, but then was struck again by a 3 AM bout of staring at the ceiling, fretting, worrying, tossing, turning. The nighttime really is the worst, because all your defenses are down. I blame my kittens, though, because without them digging their claws into me for fun, I wouldn't be awake at 3 AM in the first goddamn place.

Now, do you find it funny that today, a mere 3 days before the two year anniversary of this website's beginning, I have decided to return to the exact place where it began?

> That's wild! I suspect they'll have actual work for you there, Ben.

Actual... work.  Huh.  It *sounds* familiar, but I can't quite
remember what it feels like.

> When in this great adventure did you start experiencing the severe
> depression? Did the develop since you left LA, after KL folded, or even
> before that?

In my various studies and self-examinations lately, I've been trying
to pinpoint this.  And every time I think I've nailed it, I can look
further into the past to find evidence of it there.  The only
conclusion I can come to as a result is that, while it has certainly
been worse since I got here to Virginia than it had at most times in
the past, it has pretty much *always* been there in one form or
another.

To wit...  I remember writing desperate missives (several of which
ended up online, as in http://sonowthen.net/pwc2/jetstream.html) for
years.

To wit...  I have effectively self-medicated through alcohol for
virtually every single night since I was 18.  Most of my adult life
seems a blur, because 1/3 of it was asleep, and close to another 1/3
of it was liquored up.  And it *was* self medication.  Though damaging
and fleeting, it definitely lifted the veil of shame, guilt,
inadequacy, self-loathing, self-doubt, and all of those other
hallmarks of the dysthymic depressive's wonderful experience.

To wit...  I remember times long before even then, when I disappointed
a parent, or was shunned by classmates, which I took as
earthshattering, definitive proof of my core defectiveness, all
through childhood.  I was a reclusive perfectionist at six.  I feared
death at four.  And I was a quiet, shy baby.

So I gotta think I've ha the biological leanings forever, and I also
gotta think that they were reinforced and encouraged (unintentionally
and unwittingly) by my upbringing, and then continually reinforced and
encouraged (as a matter of the course of the disease) as life went on.
 You think you're worthless, so you avoid life, which proves your
worthlessness, so you continue to avoid life, which continues to
prove, etc, etc.

Or, maybe it was when KL folded, who knows?  ;)

The day was okay, though, until I got home. Then the waves began -- first as a delicate little lapping at my feet. Then gradually getting more forceful, attempting to knock me over. Then the tsunami hit, and 235,000 of me were killed in its wake, as I lie there at 3 in the morning, staring up at the ceiling, every painful, horrible moment of my life stopping by to say "hi", like old nemeses challenging you to slay them. But of course, who has the energy for that at 3 in the morning?

The book "Flow" discriminates clearly between "pleasure" and "enjoyment". "Pleasure" are positive experiences brought on by some physiological need. When you're hungry, eating is pleasure. As with horniness and sex. Bitter cold and warmth. Enjoyment by contrast occurs during an activity in which the whole of the self, mind, body, etc, is fully occupied and engaged. Surfing to the surfer. Painting to the painter. Cooking to the chef.

It bears noting that, right now, I continue to be fully reliant on pleasures to provide any positive life experiences.

One thing I did yesterday was buy a new book, and then spend most of the evening reading the first 190 pages of it. I like it, in that it gives nods to the Burns book and cognitive therapy, but also touches on a lot of other subjects, all of which have some merit or other in some case or other. Particularly I liked the characterization of depression as an inability to feel. This seems accurate. I am so shameful and withdrawn from my emotions that I barely remember them anymore. I don't cry at movies. I don't get angry when people screw me over. Everything is a drab, gray pall. So, that was good. And of course, just the act of reading about the illness is helpful in that it allows the suffering reader (me!) to actively distance himself from the ordinary shame and blame which he feels for his condition, and encapsulate it as a real, measurable disease, an affliction brought on by forces largely beyond his control.