YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

1. I've never felt at home in this life.

I've felt loved, accepted, cherished, appreciated, and welcome. I've felt love, gratitude, and appreciation but I've never felt at home.

2. I've always felt an affinity for, but little practical interest in, jazz, Alcoholics Anonymous, and San Francisco. I've never been to San Franscisco; how can I long for somewhere I've never been? Is jazz different in heaven? Is that what I'm missing?

I think if I get to heaven, which I claim not to believe in (scratch a cynic and you'll find a disappointed idealist), I hope to learn why, say, jazz has some hold on me, while bluegrass doesn't.

3. Another pretty lie I like to tell myself:

Of the transcendent triumphs of human endeavor, for example The Beatles, great as they are, is that there is a more-real, higher Beatles... if I could just hear it.

4. Much of my time spent on earth is consumed by consumption: the desire to consume food and the desire for women. I want to eat a steak and go on a date.

I hope in heaven I have no desire to eat an animal: I don't want to consume or be consumed.

Instead of sex, in heaven I just want to cuddle.

5. Though I don't care for it, I stutter in this life. Will I stutter in heaven? I hope not.

I left alcohol in this life for better things; not a big deal: it was natural. Will I enjoy a perfect gin and tonic in heaven?

I like the name my parents gave me. I wonder if I have a real name, in heaven.

6. Here on earth are limitations of physical abilities and time.

I remember I had a graduate internship twenty years ago, and they put me up in a dorm. I could while away my evenings in the library, following any whim, and look out the library window and see my dorm building across the sidewalk. I could go from reading a book to my room, my space, in five minutes of easy travel.

Timewise, one lifetime, even if it was a thousand years, wouldn't be enough to learn about martial arts, or even one martial art.

7. I want to be free from the burden of being right. And good. And respectable. I just want to be.

I want to shut my brain off for 48 hours. To quiet my mind for a few weeks.

Conclusion

Here on earth, in the meantime, I hope to live a long and full life. Life is getting better.

Still, I long for something I can't articulate, but is more real than anything I can see or explain.

2 of 3 Pretty Lies: Why me?

I've survived three car wrecks, any of which could have killed, maimed, or incapacitated me.

While I've been emotionally traumatized, I walked away from all three without a scratch, while I know many people who have died instantly from car wrecks.

I tell myself two things (and at least one is probably a lie):

1. I was spared because I have a purpose to accomplish on earth (probably a lie, but at least it is a pretty lie, and it gets me through the day. It keeps the cognitive dissonance at bay: some truths are too terrible to consider).

2. If #1 is true, then my purpose has been revealed to me in Dec 2017, and I am wholeheartedly failing (see Pretty Lie 3 of 3, below)

3 of 3 Pretty Lies: I know the meaning of life, or at least my life.

In December 2017 I had what turned out to be a panic attack at the waiting room of the dentist's office. It wasn't fear of the dentist (I always almost fall asleep in the chair!), but from the fact that my car died and I had zero savings.

Having no idea it was "just" a panic attack, I thought I was dying.

"Love and fun are the only things that matter." I thought to myself.

I genuinely don't think I'm being too hard on myself to say that I am a complete failure at love and fun.

One could argue, convincingly, that I've loved at least some:

1. If work is love made visible, I have done well at work.
2. My father is careful to tell me how much he loves and respects me. His words are full of pathos.

So if "love" is mixed outcome, at best, then I am an utter failure at fun.

Now, I have survived a global pandemic, and have my food and housing okay, which I am deeply grateful for, but gratitude is different from fun, you know?

I don't even know what "fun" would mean to me.

Or I do, and I can't admit it to myself, much less here.

You long for the other.

You’re looking for an interaction that is not simply you, in one way or another, talking to yourself.

Fun is you in contact with something outside you.

In Zen prayer hands, one hand is you and one hand, is the other (the beloved, a friend, strangers, the world, the divine). You are not enough. The other is not enough.

Together they generate fun

Thank you, Beany Boo, for such a thoughtful, and accurate, I think!, reply. It really brought me a lot of comfort.

Since then I've tried to be patient with myself, reminding myself that this is the first time I've survived a worldwide pandemic. Nothing is lost, and there is every reason for hope.

Something else on my mind, apropos of smiling and laughing and crying (a little) while my heart hurts:

Ever since my first year of graduate school, when I had zero friends and my GA supervisor hated me, I've learned to understand and really love everything about the blues: SRV, Muddy Waters, and more recently neo-soul: Alabama Shakes, Teskey Brothers, Black Pumas, and now this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDBQVEkAFaI

Much like my dear Breakfast at Tiffany's, our heroine doesn't dispute that her lover is leaving: she is just being a good sport, and a little feisty, in the best way!

Beautiful voice

Hi Oak,

I totally get what you said about not feeling at home in this life... I don't feel at home in my body... The pain of fibromyalgia makes me stressed out every day. I can't physically relax because it hurts, I have to take pills to sleep because the pain keeps me up...

I am so depressed right now... It could be because I am slowly starting to wean myself off of anti-depressants. Very slowly, though.

Eating a steak and going on a date sounds like a fabulous plan! Who wouldn't want that

I'm so proud of you for leaving alcohol for better things. That's huge.

I really liked #7. Our ego and pride limit us from being real. I wish I could be free of those things and just be myself.

I'm glad life is getting better for you.

I look forward to going to heaven in the future where we are free from pain and depression.

Love,
Brooke

Thank you for sharing, Oak. I wish you more chances to experience fun in the deepest and most profound ways that your heart desires.

Brooke, I'm so sorry that you're experiencing constant physical pain and depression. I just wondered if you have a therapist, doctor, or anyone helping you through the process of weaning off anti-depressants? Sending you hugs.

Brooke, it is so good to hear from you (and Rivergirl!). Thank you for your encouragement. I hope you are finding a little movement forward with your fibromyalgia. I've known some people with that, and sometimes also Lyme, and it is a very difficult situation. I know I'm not supposed to say I "hate" anything, but here are two things I hate: Superstorm Sandy and fibromyalgia/Lyme.

Another thought on loneliness:

Every Friday evening I walk to taekwando, grateful I can practice, and I see in the same upscale strip mall, a busy restaurant filled with families and people going on dates (as recently as last week COVID was comparatively rare in my county).

I shed a silent tear, inwardly. I'd love to take a young lady to my taekwando dojang for a private lesson in self defense with my instructor (I think that would be an awesome fifth date!), and then we could go next door to have steak. And the appetizers, which I can taste now, wouldn't have me up all night with GERD. Sigh.

Your encouragement, Brooke, gives me some oxygen, some room to stretch. To hope, a little.

Corniness warning!

I hope you feel better, and live for many years very happily. But if you get to heaven (which I say I don't believe in) first please tell whoever is in charge to look out for me. I am lonely here. I am making it, but barely. I need some help.

Oh, Oak. I must be corny this evening because your last paragraph makes me

I would bet a large sum that there's a lovely and lonely young woman in your city who would be happy to go on a date with you, but I understand why you're not ready to take a chance and put your heart out there again at this point.

Don't forget what Britney Howard said in the song you shared here a few years ago, and hold on this week.

rg