Okay, I'll post something sincere.
I had a nicely packaged Friday post all ready for you today. I even uploaded it before I realized what a bunch of crap it was. Listen, I still enjoy foisting my opinions about politics and culture on other people and I still love using this space as my personal doodle pad for mewing on about what I'm doing for the weekend and what I had for dinner last night. I don't mind being that dull, because really - it's a weblog. They're mostly that dull anyway, am I right? So don't think you won't see those kinds of posts from me a few days down the road. I'm just saying that for today, I feel like being a little more honest and a bit more personal. And no, I'm not even going to talk about work.
Wednesday night, I had a scary encounter with what I thought for a brief moment was a heart attack. Those of you who know me are aware of my size and ongoing problems with my weight, blood pressure, eating habits, etc. To be perfectly honest, death by heart attack would be a fairly fitting way for someone like me to die. I've often proclaimed that I care more about enjoying what life I have instead of making myself miserable in order to live longer. I never cared about the future before, being content (sincerely, it would seem) to live to the age of forty-five or fifty. It was more important to have a good life than a long one. While I still hold that to be true, the stability and purpose that Jessi provides in my life has me wishing very badly to grow old with her. These are the thoughts that were going through my head as I worried about the bizarre sensations in my chest in the wee hours of Thursday morning.
Well, if it's not apparent by the datestamp on this entry, I didn't die of a heart attack Wednesday night. I called my mother, an RN, who agreed that the symptoms I was having did not sound at all like a heart attack. The mild discomfort I had was probably due to an old injury to a muscle in the left side of my chest that I suffered lifting heavy boxes many years ago. The uneasy "twitching" sensation in the middle of my torso was probably gas of some sort. Nevertheless, the uneasiness led me to have what I believe was at least a mild anxiety attack. I became convinced that if I went to sleep there was a good chance that I would not wake up. Finding myself for the first time in my quarter-century in a position in which dying was not a pleasant option, I told myself that I wouldn't sleep until I could call my doctor in the morning. Jessi, very sympathetically and sweetly, talked to me until I calmed down. She laid next to me in bed, rubbing my back and talking to me until I fell asleep. I don't know what I would have done if I'd been by myself. Then again, if I was still by myself I probably wouldn't have cared so much about not waking up.
So what did I learn from this experience? Well, aside from confirming yet again how lucky I am to be loved, it strengthened my resolve to finally do something about my health. Notice that I said health, not weight. While I'm a very obese person (last year I breeched 400 pounds - ouch, it kind of hurts to write that), my weight can't be my real focus. I have no aspirations to be thin. I know that I'll be lucky to get down to 300 pounds. Even then, it will likely take more than a year of a strictly controlled diet and exercise to get there. I have, at the urging of my doctor, considered bariatric surgery. I dismissed it because I ultimately didn't want to admit that I was too weak to change my lifestyle without potentially life-threatening surgery.
And there in lies the problem. Am I too weak?
For as long as I can remember, I've suffered from what I call a "paralysis of the will." It hindered me from performing well in school, kept me from undertaking any sort of extracurricular activity and ultimately destroyed my creative drive. Coupled with the excessive use of LSD in my early adult life (which I still maintain had some positive affect on my personality), I was left completely bereft of creative impulse, ambition, motivation and determination. It's rare that I complete something that I begin. For pity's sake, I'm 25 and I've never had a driver's license. When something interests me, it can keep my attention for anywhere from a few minutes to a few days, depending upon its nature. Eventually, however, I grow tired of it. I used to draw and write. Now I have what I like to call "creative ADD." No creative endeavour survives more than a few minutes.
Needless to say, this particular personality flaw makes any commitment to diet or exercise a joke before it even begins.
It's tempting to blame this flaw, throw up my hands and give myself over to whatever life brings, never willing to make any effort on my own to change anything. In fact, before Jessi I would have done precisely that.
I've been reading a book called A Brotherhood of Tyrants. It discusses manic depression its impact on history - specifically in the persons of Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. In reading about these despots and how mental illness shaped both their strengths and weaknesses, I'm stunned by how familiar the descriptions of their depressive states are. Lethargy, apathy, despair...all of these things are present in my life on a daily basis. Yet, I do not consider myself depressed, or at least not any more. I have not considered taking my own life in over a year. Even then, those thoughts were always idle fantasy. My "paralysis of the will" had the unexpected side effect of making me too apathetic even to commit suicide.
I'm struck particularly by the character of Stalin. If you strip away the paranoia, the lust for violence and his generally cruel nature, it's easy for me to see how I might be similar - at least in regards to his mental state. Stalin was a manic depressive whose depressive cycles dominated his life. He had manic moments, to be sure, but they came only when Stalin found success. In general, particularly in his early life before he gained any real power, Stalin was a paralyzed individual. The difference is that his paralysis made him angry and cruel, whereas mine has only made me apathetic in the extreme. Reading about his life, it alarms me that he never really overcame this flaw. He simply hurt as many people as he could and then died an old man.
But thinking about it, I understand why he was never able to defeat his paralysis. Stalin's life was motivated only by the negative - the suffering of others, the quest for power, the repression of those he thought could hurt him, etc. He had virtually no positive influences in his life. This is where I think I may be saved where Stalin simply consumed himself (and, sadly, fifty million people with him). I have a motivation just as selfish, but far more pure and good than any Stalin ever contemplated. I am in love, and I wish to hold on to it as long as I can. I believe this motivation will overcome my apathy and paralysis. The coming months and years will tell, I suppose.
-Sam
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