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As I mentioned in a recent post, I’m aware I’m showing symptoms of depression again. Irritability is one of those—and man oh man did I get irritated Thursday afternoon. Ironically, it had been an enjoyable day up to that point. I had several appointments in Waco and had time to hang out in between with my friend Kathy catching up .
I made it back home around mid-afternoon. I was looking forward to spending the afternoon and evening writing and maybe working on that “life plan” project. On booting, my computer alerted me to updates. I told it to do its thing while I finished off the leftover omelette and pancake from brunch and started a new book as I ate. Meal finished, I did a restart on the updated computer and…
It wouldn’t boot to my desktop. It still won’t boot to my desktop. (I’m a linux user, by the way, so don’t worry too much about it happening on your Windows or Apple systems.)
I really, really hate having to work on computers these days. (Burn out from 20+ years in the Information Technology field.) Worse, I’m no longer very good at it either because I don’t like it. I still have the skills, but the knowledge is a bit sketchy and it takes a ton of online research plus trial and error to fix things.
I spent several hours moving between computers (old workstations, none good enough for a backup workstation) doing online research, swapping out cables, crawling under my desk, digging around for my external drives, boot disks, backups, etc. I angrily elbowed a stack of boxes out of my way, sending audio CDs spilling across the floor—which I then had to pick up and repack into the box. <sigh> I donkey kicked my desk chair across the room as I came back out from under the desk ONE MORE TIME and found it in my way. During a short break, I peevishly snapped at my Dad for having eaten all the peanut butter and honey I’d pre-mixed.
My annoyance grew proportional to my frustration, trending more and more into true anger as time went on.
Despite being able to gain text-based access to my computer and, from there, able to launch a GUI desktop (if not my GUI desktop) I didn’t have any success in figuring out what was keeping the computer from booting normally. Somewhere in all this, I noticed a bulge in my keyboard. (It’s a laptop and I set it up like a workstation with a wireless keyboard/mouse combo and an external monitor. I rarely put hands on it. Even when it goes to Austin with me it’s almost always just moving between keyboard/mouse and monitor setups on location.)
A bulge in an electronic device is often a sign of a battery overheating and swelling—on its way to exploding. <sigh> I don’t have money for that. I’m already worrying about how I’m going to pay the increased electricity bill if I start spending 50-70% of my time in Austin working on my condo remodel.
Now, toss the irritations of my physical environment into my thrashing emotions: A house with the volume permanently set at shouting level for about 16 hours of the day—spewing political propaganda about a third of that time. (Dad refuses to wear his hearing aids because they “bother him” and refuses to replace this 10 year old set because “they should last longer.”) My work/leisure/sleep space is a packed, cluttered 12 x 12 bedroom, although it does, thankfully, include a walk-in closet. It too is lined with floor-to-ceiling shelving to maximize vertical storage.
I got to the point where I could barely keep myself from snatching up the laptop and bashing it to bits on the desktop. Time to call a halt to everything and chill. However, when I settled down on my bed (in “recliner” mode) with my phone and my latest audio book (different than the book I started during my meal of leftovers), I found I couldn’t concentrate on the book or the coloring app. I felt like crying. I just couldn’t soothe myself. It kept ramping up.
I refused to lay there crying. And going out into the house meant picking a fight with with my unsuspecting father. In my young adult years, this would have been a time when I would have gotten into my truck for a destination-less drive on country back-roads. But, gone are the days when driving was soothing to irritated nerves. (Too much road-rage experienced in Austin traffic.)
I put on my running gear, barely remembering to fill the hydration bladder and pull on the pack. I headed out the door, my only plan to keep going until my mind quit raging. It took about an hour.
It was 100°F with the sun still high above the western horizon when I started. I hadn’t risked running, instead sticking to a purposeful walk. I tried making it a walking meditation where I observed my inner dialog instead of participating in it. As you might guess, my participation was much more prominent than my observation. I was, however, able to pull myself out of the raging periodically to check in with my breathing, my heart rate, my pace, hear the ’80s rock in my headphones. During these periodic check-ins, I’d remind myself to take in 4 swallows of water (that’s my guess at 4 oz). I didn’t want to compound my foolishness by giving myself a heat stroke while I stomped around the county working a temper tantrum out of my system.
By the time my heart rate started remaining slightly elevated and I’d developed some pressure in my skull (the beginnings of a heat and exertion induced headache), I was over 3 miles in. What time I’d spent thinking about the walk and not railing internally about all my “problems,” I’d been negotiating with myself about how far or how long I should walk. It had to be long enough to get all this bad energy out of my system, but not so long that I injured myself doing it.
I decided it should be more about time rather than distance. The main reason I was out there, after all, was to give myself time, space, and a distraction to calm myself down. Not to put in my daily mileage. Two and a half hours sounded about right. One and a quarter out then the same back. But I’d be slower going back, though, right? Negotiations continued. “Okay, so an hour and five minutes out. Except, I’m really starting to feel it now and I still have another 15 minutes to make that. I haven’t done any mileage outside (or otherwise!) in more than a month—and that had been less than 3 miles. I don’t want to be stupid about this.”
Finally, I settled on a turnaround point in my mind’s eye, a “T” intersection in the county road not much further along the route I was on. The distance to it would be just shy of 3.5 miles. I would start back at whichever came first, the time or the turnaround. As it turned out, I reached the turnaround point 56 minutes out.
Surprising myself, I kept to about the same average pace going back as I had going out—despite my elevated heart rate. (See the screenshot of the HR-to-Pace chart above.) I’m like a horse headed back to the barn. The closer I get, the faster I go. Or try to go.
I was limping by that time with my left knee feeling a little hyper-extended. My lower body (back, hips, and glutes) was so tight I was tottering along like a doll without articulating joints. Heart rate was staying in the 140s, close to my maximum. However, my breathing was telling me it was manageable and I was good to keep going.
Coincidentally, Run w/Hal called for 7.8 miles that day. I finished with 6.8 miles. Just a mile short. Not bad.
There was a price to be paid in soreness and stiffness. Some focused stretching and flexing got my mobility going again. Magnesium supplements got me through the night without leg cramps. I was very happy about that, let me tell you.
Next day, still a little sore but, very stiff in my low-back and hips. I made a point of adding a good dose of supine rotations in with more lower body and back stretching, which worked the issues out of my body.
Overall, I’m very happy to have successfully channeled all that negative energy (and it was ALOT) into something positive. Unfortunately, I had another raging episode the very next day, getting triggered when I ran into one problem after another trying to get access to my Verizon account to cancel a data service I have with them. It really started getting unmanageable when I made the drive to the location where I’d purchased the service only to be told they couldn’t help me because they were just a retailer. (I bet they could have accessed my account well enough to sell me more services, though. Grrrr….)
Unfortunately, I couldn’t risk another 6.8 mile walk in 100 degree temps without utterly trashing my body. As I do the thing you shouldn’t do, which is hold on to expired prescriptions, I still had a few tablets of what I affectionately call my “chill pills.” I dosed myself with one. (CAUTION: DON’T TAKE AN OLD MEDICATION WITH ANY MEDICATIONS YOU WEREN’T TAKING WHEN A NEW MEDICATION WAS PRESCRIBED! Best practice is simply NOT TO TAKE expired medications. Right?)
Two consecutive days with emotions so volatile I’m struggling to control them? Being triggered by simple every day nuisances we all deal with in our modern lives? These are signs of an issue. I took the hint.
I got on the phone and requested an appointment with a psychiatric practitioner to work on reviewing and restarting my meds. Like I’ve said before, I don’t mess around with my mental health.
I was so VERY FORTUNATE when I called. I just have to stop and acknowledge that. Mostly so I know and admit I’m not getting totally f’k’d by the world right now. 😀
As an established patient, it can take weeks to get an appointment with your psychiatric care provider. New patients? Months! I learned the PMHNP (Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practicioner) I’ve been seeing for the past few years had left the practice sometime since March. As my medical history stays with the practice and not the practitioner, I opted to stay with the practice and requested a new practitioner. They had one with an available appointment the very next business day. (That’s tomorrow, as of this writing). That is almost unheard of in my experience. I caught a break!!!
Here’s hoping the rage monster gets calmed soon. It’s certainly NOT the type of motivation I’ve been looking for to help me put in my 50K training mileage. 😉
