Paul's Reality

Whew! What a week! It is Friday morning as I write this post. Tuesday I left home with my power line noise tracking stuff at 6:00 in the morning and did not get back until after 9:00 that evening! I walked at least 20 miles that day, doing one final and complete sweep of the area. Exhausted doesn’t cover it.

Wednesday I spent frantically trying to clean up my home and finish some modifications to my radio equipment in preparation for the visit from the power company person on Thursday. I didn’t quite finish the work with the equipment and ended up with a somewhat less than planned setup for the following day.

Thursday the power company troubleshooter arrived as scheduled. He spent much of the day investigating each of the poles I had found noisy. He found noise at one third of them, not bad considering most of the problems are intermittent. It went pretty well considering he called me on the phone at least half a dozen times during the day to have me listen to the noise on my radio while he “aggravated” specific poles. All in all I can see this will be a long, involved process and a lot of work, but I have hope it can be resolved.

Today I’ve got a long list of things I would like to do or should do. Mow the lawn. Go to town and do errands. Go to town and buy comfort food! Go take a picture of something of interest across town. Work on finishing changes to my radio equipment to optimize for noise tracking and identification. But I’ve got no energy for any of it. It doesn’t help that it is hot and humid outside. The forecast calls for heavy rain and thunderstorms this afternoon through tomorrow, so the outside stuff – unless I get to it in the next few hours – will have to wait for Sunday at the earliest.

I have been out four of the last five nights, walking the streets and back roads looking for power line noise. I usually head out around 7:00 PM when the temperature is dropping and there is no direct sun to contend with. Heat doesn’t agree with me. I’m out between three and seven hours. Last night was the shortest. I didn’t get out until 10:00 (because I was watching the U.S. Open) and arrived home shortly after 1:00 AM. Many of these problems are intermittent, so one has to check each area several times in order to locate all (or most) of them.

After dark most people pretty much seem to ignore me, perhaps not wanting to take any chances on me being some sort of madman!? But in the earlier hours when it’s still light I have had a number of people stop and ask what in the world I’m doing. Some know who I am and some are total strangers.  Most are surprised by the concept of power lines causing radio interference, ask a few questions, wish me luck, and move on. So far this hasn’t presented any real problem for me! That’s odd, don’t you think? I’m a little surprised I haven’t had a visit from the local police. By now I expected someone would have called them to check out this lunatic roaming the streets at night waving some bizarre device around! Perhaps the fact I’m wearing a bright florescent orange and yellow vest helps? That should make it obvious I’m not trying to be invisible or sneaky. It’s the last thing someone up to no good would be wearing at night!

Dear readers (those who have been following my story for a while), please make sure you are sitting down for this. 🙂 You’ll never believe this… but Friday morning I called the power company noise troubleshooter and left a voice mail! He called back around noon and we made an appointment to get together on this problem next Thursday, weather permitting.

The hunt has been going reasonably well. There are, not surprisingly, multiple problems in the area. I have 13 confirmed noisy poles on my list and several suspected but not confirmed due to a large area being “flooded” with noise from one particular pole. That makes it hard to hear lesser offenders. I stumbled upon that really bad one around midnight last night, somewhat by accidental discovery. I had been concerned about the fact once I got past a certain point on my street almost every pole seemed noisy, and they all had the same noise characteristics. It just didn’t seem logical. Finally last night I realized this noise might  be generated elsewhere and simply propagating along the power line, radiating from the multitude of hardware on each pole along the way. On that premise I began to walk side streets, even ones that seemed relatively quiet when I pointed my “sniffer” down them. As I crested a slight hill on one of them, the noise I’d been hearing from every pole in a large area suddenly became a deafening roar, completely overloading my sniffing device. Aha! The hill had been blocking direct pickup of the noise, and what I’d been hearing was the result of some small portion of it conducted out along the lines. That pole is the worst I have found yet. By some technical wizardry I have been able to determine that it is, in fact, one of the biggest contributors to the noise interfering with radio operations from my home. When I meet with the troubleshooter I plan to ask if he would consider starting with that pole, even though it is nearly a mile and a half from where I live.

Anyway, enough of that. The point of this post was: I’m getting a lot of exercise, feeling better, and have been unusually high functioning in dealing with people since I embarked on this project.

As I have been feeling very overwhelmed lately, you would think the last thing I need is another project or demand on my time and mental resources. On the other hand, maybe a temporary shift of focus can help? My focus has shifted and has been all about one thing now for several days. I have announced that I am putting everything else on hold until further notice.

My radio hobby has always been one of the main tools in my arsenal to beat stress and anxiety. But for the past few years it has slowly been eroding away, in large part due to increasing noise hindering radio reception in my area. In the winter, some of this noise is from a neighbor’s furnace which has developed some sort of problem. But noise from power lines has been on the increase for several years and has reached the point of being a major hindrance to radio operation. This is a year round problem which is now affecting everything I do with my hobby.

Power lines generating radio noise is very common. It is usually the result of loose, corroded, or damaged hardware which causes tiny electrical arcs. Federal Communications Commission regulations require power companies to fix such problems, but getting them to do it is not always easy.  Years ago,when I was a little more able to deal with contacting others, etc. I went through a long battle with my local power company over such issues. Even getting the FCC involved didn’t really get a lot of action. Since then I had a defeatist attitude toward making any further attempts.

A couple weeks ago, I ran into an old friend at the hamfest. In passing I mentioned the noise problems. He said he had a friend who could request the power company get in touch with me and do something about it. I figured I might as well let him try and see what happened. I really didn’t expect it to go anywhere. But to my surprise I got a call from a power company troubleshooter about a week later. The essence of the conversation was that he is willing to come out here and fix problems, but he needs me to locate the offending poles. It seems they don’t really have the equipment to track down these problems. This man seemed friendly and sincere. He went out of his way to make sure I had his name and contact information. I said I would be happy to go out and locate noisy poles, and would contact him when I had the list ready for him. All the while I had doubts about my ability to pick up the phone and call him, but I decided to give this a shot.

Now I needed some sort of portable “noise sniffer” to go out and track down noisy poles. I could build such a unit from scratch if I had enough time, but I wanted to get moving sooner than that. I wanted to make it clear I am serious about wanting this fixed and willing to do my part. There is one company who sells a unit for this purpose. They have a reputation for design shortcuts and quality control issues, but usually a little “tweaking” (modification) of their products results in something really useful. So I ordered one, despite feeling I couldn’t afford it. The unit arrived two days later. After testing I found it useful but in need of enhancement to be a truly indispensable tool. So I immediately set about the work of enhancing it. The work took nearly a week, since I wanted the end result to work well and look professional.

The noise sniffer was ready at 6:30 on a Tuesday evening. I hit the road with it at 7:00, intending this to be a brief trial run. It didn’t quite turn out that way! I walked and I walked and I walked. I found noisy pole after noisy pole. I found some so noisy I couldn’t check their neighbors because of all the din. I don’t know how many miles I walked in total, much of it doubling back and forth in problem areas, trying to refine readings. I was at it more than five hours, arriving home exhausted shortly after midnight. I try not to imagine what passing motorists must have thought, seeing a guy wearing a reflective safety vest and headphones, pointing some really odd looking thing up in the air, sometimes stopping at a power pole and twisting the thing this way and that whilst walking slowly around said pole! But I had no visits from law enforcement so I guess I wasn’t perceived as an imminent threat! 🙂

I still have more areas to cover. The following day (yesterday) it rained, causing water to bridge all the tiny gaps in hardware and shut down the arcing. Hence there was no noise yesterday. Today has dawned bright. I plan to let everything dry out and go on another search this evening, when temperatures cool down (for sake of my comfort).

I’m very worried about whether I will be able to call the power company guy when I have finished my initial sweep and have the list of bad poles for him. Assuming he really is as sincere as he sounds, this would probably be an ongoing collaborative effort for some time. It is not realistic to expect all problems to be solved in the first round, for a number of technical reasons. Obviously if I fail the communication, nothing will get fixed and I will have wasted money on equipment. But setting everything else aside and making it known that I was doing this and nothing but this, at least for the time being, has helped reduce the stress burden. I’ve found focus. I have one thing to work on, and I am pursuing it with vigor.  Oh, and I’m getting a hell of a lot of additional exercise!

This is a belated post. A week ago today I had an experience that I really enjoyed. I can’t even find words to express how exciting and fun it was! But the very same experience plunged me into a very deep, dark depression which I am still fighting to climb out of.

One of the local ham radio operators had asked if I wanted a ride to the hamfest last weekend. A  hamfest is like a flea market and social gathering for ham radio operators. I really didn’t feel like going, but on the other hand I was tired of turning down opportunities and I did think I wanted to be there for one reason: they were launching a high altitude weather balloon carrying a (mostly)  ham radio payload. This launch was a joint project between the University of Maine and the Pine State Amateur Radio Club, sponsor of the hamfest. WABI TV did a story on the event. You can watch the raw video (minus the newscast commentary, unfortunately).

I have always found such experiments fascinating. Years ago I had supplied a radio transmitter for a friend who was doing a high altitude balloon launch. I was able to copy more than an hour of morse code transmissions from it during the flight.

Then balloon launches last weekend was carrying a video camera (no video downlink in real time but it saved a video record of th flight), a very low power voice repeater which hams could communicate with each other through, an experiment by local high school students, and more. I was standing just a few feet from the balloon when it was launched. In fact, I am one of the bystanders visible in the television footage linked above.

After watching the balloon ascend until it was but a tiny dot to the naked eye, I went inside to watch its flight tracked in real time on large map projected from a computer. This was made possible by a GPS and transmitter sending down position data every 30 seconds. This was the most fascinating part of the event for me. I stood there and watched the entire flight as it was tracked. It was incredible watching the changes in direction and speed as the balloon first encountered surface winds, then passed through the jet stream, then meandered about in relative calm above the jet stream… and the reverse of all that on the descent. You can see the path it took on a street map or satellite view by clicking the small images shown here. You may want to maximize your browser window or even go full screen with it to see more detail. The balloon was launched at the southwest end of this track, landing at the northeast end. It traveled up to 70 miles per hour while passing through the jet stream, and as slow as 2 to 3 mph while drifting generally westward (with am few small loops) above it. Relative speed can be seen in these plots. The wider the spacing between the red dots the faster it was moving. Each red dot represents one position report, which were sent at 30 second intervals. The flight lasted about two and one half hours, reaching a maximum altitude over 97,000 feet near the westward end of that slow westerly jog mid-track. That is where the balloon finally burst from the constant pressure of helium inside with decreasing atmospheric pressure outside.

After the flight I was able to listen to some (limited) communications with the payload recovery  team who went out to chase it and bring back all the stuff that went up. They only had to walk about half a mile into the forest to get this one. I’ve heard past recovery efforts have been a little more challenging! This one could have been had it come down just a little sooner, as it was flying over some remote areas with only private logging roads for access. How I would have loved to be part of the recovery team! What fun that must be! Tracking the flight, trying to figure out where it might land ahead of time so as to pre-position, sorting out the best route to get as close to the landing site as possible, walking in to hunt for it, and finally locating it! There is, I suppose, a small amount of guesswork as to exactly where it comes down. The last position report we had put it at 905 feet altitude, descending on a northwesterly heading. It probably landed about 30 seconds later, as it had been dropping near 800 feet per reporting interval.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the event, I was very depressed afterward. It reminded me of the hopes and dreams I had when I was young. I was going to have an exciting career, possibly involving research like this. For certain it would have involved electronics and technology. Now, about to turn 48, I am but a bystander observing all the things I love and once thought I could be a part of.

The good news is that review was completed successfully. The bad news is I was unable to manage and it had to be almost completely handled by my case manager, same as the last two years. This just seems to underscore the fact I’m still not able to get by on my own and creates serious worry as to what will happen when I find myself without these services.

I’m feeling hopelessly overwhelmed and depressed. I suppose I brought on the overwhelmed part myself, trying to do too much. But when you’ve lived a life of not being able to do the things you really want or need to, it is hard to not try to do all that you can. I find I keep overestimating my ability to handle multiple tasks or projects. I should be completing that home improvement project from last year. I should be cutting bushes and digging out stumps where I cleared an area two years ago. I should be thoroughly cleaning my house. I want to work on my antennas (though with all the noise problems here these days, I really don’t know that I will be on the radio much in the future). I want/need to get more work done on my repeater (weather continues to plague me on that). I want to get that project done for a friend (weather interfering). But with all these things on my to do list, I just feel hopelessly overwhelmed. I start to work on something and almost immediately lose focus. Productivity is near zero. Frustration is off the charts.

Money is a worry/frustration. It being obvious the walking lifestyle isn’t sustainable, I need to save every penny toward buying a vehicle, which means I don’t get to do much fun stuff. If I were able to get caught up on current projects it would also mean not being able to start any new ones. Home improvement projects will end permanently unless this lifestyle becomes manageable. There just is not enough room in the budget or owning a vehicle and fixing up the house.

I have more or less made the decision to give up the antique radio part of my hobby and sell off the parts I had collected. I love it but I just can’t afford it. Spending tends to get out of hand with that. I do love it so much, and when I run across a nice, rare antique part I just lose my self control. I wish I could sell all the stuff in one big lot. That would make it easier, but that’s not possible or practical. I will have to sell everything piece by piece on eBay. Doing so will prolong the agony of seeing it go. Now isn’t the season for that. Potential buyers are busy with summer activities. The items will fetch a better price in the Fall/Winter months when people are focused on that stuff again.

My eating has become worse than ever. I seem unable to find relief from stress, anxiety, and resulting depression anywhere, except for brief reprieves brought on by sugar or simple carbohydrates. It has gotten so bad this time my morning bowl of oatmeal turns into a “no bake” fudge oatmeal cookie. Actually it is more like the equivalent of many such cookies. Every day I resolve to make this the day it stops, but within hours I am climbing the walls and will do anything to find a moment’s relief, with total disregard for the consequences.

Through online support groups I have observed people with anxiety disorders are often frustrated with the average person’s inability to understand what we go through or why we can’t  just “get over it”. But when confronted with the incredible absurdity that is this disorder, I can certainly understand it. I know that no matter what I say, do, or write I can never convey to the healthy what it is like to live with this condition. Healthy people wouldn’t be able to comprehend it any more than I can comprehend what their lives must be like.

This morning two things happened which underscore the extraordinary absurdity of this condition. I will attempt to describe these events, though it is nearly impossible to put into words.

I left home at 6:00 AM, wanting to get to the credit union and use the lobby ATM well before opening time, when no one would likely be around. I get so nervous I cannot function well enough to navigate use of the machine if anyone is nearby. Arriving at 6:15 and seeing no one around, Main Street all but completely devoid of traffic, I confidently strolled up to the doors. Suddenly I froze, literally paralyzed by intense fear, having seen two human reflections in the glass doors. In that instant I could not move. I could not even breathe. I wanted to run but my body would not respond. I was absolutely panicked. After what seemed an eternity, I did mange to turn around. To my great surprise, there was no one around. Looking back at the doors again, there were still two reflections! Was I going insane? Had somehow the laws of physics stopped working?

Eventually I realized both reflections were me. The early morning sunlight was causing one reflection in the outer door, another in the inner door. In the absolute terror of the moment, I had been unable to recognize this simple and obvious fact; unable to recognize that I was seeing myself in both places. How can one be expected to comprehend this? So intense is my fear of getting caught in a panic situation that the obvious is completely lost to the terror of the moment. The response is so automatic, so beyond control, that the slightest thing – no matter how absurd – sets it in motion.

Following this event I found a secluded place to pull myself together before going on to my next errand. After some considerable time, I felt able to take on a trip to the supermarket for food. The shopping went well, as did interaction with the clerk at the checkout, until the very last moment. She handed me a small square of cardboard, and said “and here is a ticket for our grand prize drawing out there”, while nodding toward the store lobby. Once again I felt completely consumed by terror. Barely able to move at all, I stumbled into the lobby. Had it not been for the shopping cart partially holding me upright, it is quite likely I would have fallen.

I tried to fathom what I was expected to do with this damned thing. I imagined there must be some box, bucket, or something to put it in. If only I were able to see one! Then it dawned on me that I might be expected to write my name and address on the ticket – if only I were able to read anything it said on there, in my panic state with blurred vision! I have no idea what happened next, or how much time elapsed before the next thing I do recall.

I found myself pushing a shopping cart around a parking lot, looking for my house. At least I thought I was looking for my house, but I couldn’t get a firm grasp on the thought. Nor could I recall what  my house looks like. It was as though the thought itself were a tangible item, shrouded in extraordinarily dense fog – perceptible, but only identifiable in the vaguest sense. Slowly I began to sense that I didn’t live in a parking lot. I started to think perhaps I was looking for a vehicle, but I couldn’t remember what it looked like, nor could I clearly see the vehicles around me with still very compromised vision from the panic. I seem to recall wandering around the parking lot for a while, though I can’t give any estimate of how long. Finally I thought I remembered that I don’t have a vehicle any more, that I get around some other way. Slowly the thought that I had come here on a bicycle emerged, along with a vague sense that I left it behind the store.

Following that, there is another period of time I cannot account for. I have no memory whatsoever of the trip home. I remember arriving home on the bicycle, which means I had to have ridden two miles in heavy morning truck and commuter traffic. The thought that I did that and had no memory of it is, to say the very least, unsettling. I wonder if I was aware of and interacting with my surroundings at the time, or if I was oblivious to the very real dangers.

First an update on the review process. My case manager called the agency on Friday but wasn’t able to get through to the right person. Typical. She left a message asking the person to call me ASAP . I did not get a call Friday, and will be surprised if I get one at all. I’ve unfortunately had many years of experience with this agency, and that’s just how they operate.

Wednesday night I had stayed up until 2:30 repairing that broken piece of repeater equipment. On Friday I got a ride to the site and re-installed it. On the bench at home it had been performing flawlessly after the repair. Imagine my disgust when I found at the site it was misbehaving badly, drawing much more current than it should and getting very hot. It had also done this previously, before the breakdown and subsequent repair. I had thought it was just a defective unit, but now it became obvious something else in the system was upsetting it. A three hour hunt for gremlins ensued, and yes, I did find the cause. However there were still some small hints that other things were not quite right with the whole setup. It has mostly been ignored for three years while I was busy trying to extract myself from crisis.

I awoke early Saturday morning with a plan. I was going to take the bicycle and get to the hill as early as possible, before the sun heated the air too much and made the seven mile uphill ride too uncomfortable. I planned to spend the day working on my repeater stuff and a nearby project for a friend. The project for a friend did not go well. After measuring, I discovered far more trees than we discussed were going to have to come out to make room for what he wants to build. I surveyed an alternate location with fewer obstacles, and will check with him to see if he wants to opt for plan B before proceeding.

I did get quite a lot done with my repeater. I collected evidence regarding the (now growing) list of little tell-tale signs that all is not quite well, and accordingly made a future to-do list which should help to identify causes and remedy the situation. I ripped some unused electrical wiring out of the building in preparation for a re-wiring project to take place (hopefully) later this year. I reprogrammed the controller (mini computer thingy) in order to change some options on the system. I re-arranged and tidied up all the cables interconnecting various pieces of equipment. I swatted dozens of black flies, got stung by a wasp, and nearly died of fright when a wild turkey attempted to land on the roof. The turkey bounced off the roof and crash landed on a rock wall nearby. They do not (usually) fly or land gracefully. I put about six hours of work into it, and hope to return for another round soon. I would have worked longer, but by early afternoon it was 80 degrees outside and well past the 90 degree mark inside where I was working. I decided it was time to withdraw and live to fight another day. 🙂

Perhaps the most surprising part of it was I didn’t get too stressed out when people were hanging around near where I was working. The owner of the land, in addition to leasing tower space, has a sort of club/hangout where people gather to play horseshoes, watch TV, play cards, or whatever. In the past this activity has really bothered me. I have a theory on why it didn’t this time but will reserve comment until I see if this is going to be the new norm.

I had previously mentioned to my case manager about Boo pricking me with his claws if I ignore him too long, but I’m not sure she believed me. Yes, it is a bad habit and yes, I’ve tried to break him of it. Boo does not train in typical ways like most cats. He is the first cat I have ever had (many) that resists training to this extent. I’ve had very good luck training all the others. Boo is definitely not stupid. In  fact, he is probably one of the more intelligent cats I’ve known. Perhaps that’s part of the problem. Fortunately, he is quite well behaved in most ways, with only a couple of bad habits.

Anyway, Friday my case manager was here and we were discussing some of my current issues. She was sitting on the couch, I was in a straight back wooden chair at my computer. Several feet behind me is a doorway into a short hall, where Boo’s food and water bowls are.  He had been pacing around out there in the hall meowing for several minutes. I was trying to ignore him, other than to say “Later, Boo” a couple of times. All of a sudden, with no warning whatsoever I felt the prick of four very sharp claws in my left side, just under my lower rib! Yow! He has this down to a science. He never, ever breaks the skin, but hits hard enough so I really feel those claws! It is always a carefully controlled precision strike.

My case manager was flabbergasted. She couldn’t believe he did that! She later described the scene from her vantage point. She could see the door to the hallway behind me. Boo came through the door in fast stealth mode… low to the floor, moving fast but not quite running, totally silent. She described him as being like a three dimensional shadow racing across the floor, his eyes intently fixed on my side. He hurried over to a spot just behind my chair, then in one fluid continuation of motion, raised up on his hind legs and let me have it in the side with his left paw! Without ever really stopping at all, he swung around, once again low to the floor, still in silent stealth mode, and floated back to the hallway. He momentarily disappeared, then his face appeared peering around the side of the doorway to see if I was getting up or what.

By this time my case manager was laughing out loud and trying not to at the same time. I swung around to look for Boo, knowing what I would find. The scene was just as I expected. There was his face, or half of it, peering around the door frame. At the instant our eyes met he flicked his nose upward and had this little glint of defiance, authority and superiority in his eye… as if to say “I’ll teach you to ignore me when I’m demanding food! If you weren’t so stupid you would have learned this long ago!”

Anybody want a cat? ? ? Just kidding! Even though his behavior can be frightfully bad at times, as I said he is mostly a good cat and a great companion. He is very loving and never leaves my side when I am sick.

My case manager called on Tuesday. She is back from time off and coming out here Friday. We made a plan to try to complete the telephone interview for my medical coverage and food assistance case review. I was very relieved that we might be able to get that out of the way. Wednesday morning I got a letter from the department handling the review. The letter says they never got my review form, and that if I’ve lost it I  need to call them to request a new one. I did not lose it! I mailed it long ago. It could be lost in the mail, but more than likely they received it and lost it on their end. So the plan for Friday will have to be changed. We will have to call and request a new form. The telephone interview can’t be done until they have a completed form in their hands.

Also Wednesday morning I discovered the amplifier at the repeater site had failed. Not again!? My DLS worker arrived and we went out to do errands. She helped me transport some power tools to the hill (repeater site) which I hope to use soon in helping a friend with his project up there. She knows I am very stressed about being so far behind on everything and want to get that done. While dropping off the tools I verified that in fact the amplifier was dead. We stopped at a small store I’ve been trying to get comfortable with. I bought a yummy home made piece of chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting. I was in no mood to care about the fat, the calories, the sugar, or eating healthy. Aside from my poor food choice, the store didn’t bother me. Next we stopped at the larger store where I do most of my shopping for a couple of items. That was a big event. I used a different debit card for the first time ever. The process was a bit different than what I’ve become used to with the other card, but I handled it just fine!

Later that day I was complaining about the broken repeater amplifier. One of the locals offered to give me a ride to the site to retrieve the offending piece of crap so I could bring it home and attempt a repair. I accepted. Upon arriving back at my place we discovered the repeater was malfunctioning. Evidently the controller (think of it as a very special purpose computer that controls all of the equipment at the site) had freaked out when I removed one piece of equipment. It had essentially thrown its hands in the air and given up doing any work. Grr! So we went to the site a second time to reboot the little bastard. I wished I could boot it another way… right over the steep side of the hill! Oh, yes… I was very amused… NOT!

I’m VERY frustrated and it comes out as anger. It’s not that I don’t like working on radio equipment. The repeater is a very important project to me. It is my way of giving something back to a hobby and community that have been very kind to me. But there is never anywhere near enough money to do it right. I’m always having to buy 40 year old dead stuff, resuscitate it, and try to get it to keep functioning. Consequently there are frequent problems and overall the performance of the system is never up to what it should be or what I desperately want it to be. I have scraped up $800 to put into it this Spring but that is all I can do and it is a drop in the bucket.  It would take nearly another $4000 to sort out known issues. I just don’t have that kind of money and no way of getting it. There will continue to be problems with the system for years to come.

I’m also in a bad mood because I’m feeling desperately overwhelmed. That pending case review is stressing me. My tolerance for stress has been lowered by so many dental and medical appointments over the past few months. The lumber for completing my ill fated home improvement project is warping and twisting in the Spring warmth and extreme humidity but for the most part I am unable to get any work done. That project needs to be finished NOW, before the lumber becomes unusable. I have that project for a friend and my own repeater work to do on the hill but every day I have enough free time to get there it rains.  On the rare occasion I do get there, I’m too tired from making the trip to do any real work. This is one area where my new lifestyle is not working well. The seven mile trip almost all uphill takes too much out of me. The more overwhelmed I feel, the less I accomplish even when conditions are right.

Even though the repeater is the closest thing I have to a purpose or focus in life, and I’m very dedicated to it, there were times yesterday I would have surely strapped explosives to it and blown the whole damn thing to hell… if I’d only had explosives. I’m just at that point where I can’t take any more pressure.

The day following my last post I had extra time with my DLS worker. We were able to do some shopping before the appointment, so I got some food. I was feeling particularly stressed, and for the first time in two years I bought a ton of junk food while accompanied by my worker. Shame and embarrassment have kept me from doing that before, since working toward healthy eating was an item I requested be put in my DLS treatment plan! But on this day, I just had to have junk food and nothing could hold me back.

The appointment with the dentist went OK. He made an adjustment which seems to be working. I am now able to wear the dentures without pain, though I’m not making a lot of progress on getting used to them yet. I can see this is going to be a much bigger adjustment than I thought.

After getting home, I started eating junk food. I ate so much sugar I made myself sick. This has become an addiction. Just like an alcoholic can’t stop drinking, I can’t stop eating sugar. I know it will eventually have serious health consequences, and I desperately want to stop, but I have no control. I’m reminded of the first step in twelve step programs… “Admitted I was powerless over…” Well, damn! I am powerless over it all right!

The next day I got up and immediately started loading up on sugar again. Once again, continued until I got sick, and even then didn’t stop! I did (somehow) manage to repair my riding lawn mower that day.  It had been “significantly harmed” late last summer when one of the blades hit a root from a tree.

Finally I had a good day! Saturday, May 12, I managed to get started on work to finish the home improvement project that was halted by onset of winter many months ago. It is very difficult for me to work on anything when I am feeling so overwhelmed, but if I can just get this done and clear all the stuff that got crammed in my living space during this project it may help me to feel better.