Sunday, September 28, 2014
I fully realize that my entries since
relocating to Florence Arizona have been sparse. That will be changing and I
promise to my followers to get back on track. The transition has been
challenging mentally and I have settled in as best as I can. For some time, I
have been allowing myself to be affected by all of the things that I do not
like about life at the moment. Along with that, came all of the things I am not
liking about myself, and of course, the people I am closest to. It is a very
slippery slope once you get on and I had to put a stop to it.
I have never been a particularly
negative person. Truth be told, I am medicated for it in a way. What I mean by
that is that I am diagnosed with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and ironically,
the medication that works best for that – is Zoloft, which is also used to
treat depression. All that said, you would think that I’d be so damned happy
that I’d be using Pharrell’s song as an anthem of my own.
But I am not.
Like I said, things have been
difficult and well, I have been difficult as well, I am almost joyless, or at
least I was. I had to let go of the desired control, input and choices. Coming
to the new minimum yard, I had set myself up for failure from the start because
I didn’t know any better. Slowly, I began to look at it for what it is – a “pit
stop” along the way to wherever it is that I am headed. It is not permanent, it
is not forever and I have a release date. For the first time in my
sentence, I can truly say this is my ‘temporary housing’. That fact, though still unpleasant in
reality, makes me happy.
Most important is that I have adopted
immediate counter measures in my everyday life as a mechanism to cope. If you
are wondering what that means, here are a few examples:
Challenge: The food served here is
atrocious and unidentifiable.
Counter Measure: I am thankful that I
have my own food and the support from my mother that enables me to eat well.
Challenge: When I speak to some of my
fellow inmates it feels like the very process of doing so is robbing me of
brain cells.
Counter Measure: I pick up the phone
and call Joey, my mom, Deb or Kevin and talk about something interesting and
intelligent
Challenge: I really hate wearing the
color orange
Counter Measure: Luckily for me, there
are worse colors against my skin tone
Challenge: I hate my job
Counter Balance: I remind myself that
85% of Americans also hate their jobs and they aren’t in prison!
In adopting this behavior, it has
allowed me to genuinely be more positive and care less about all the crap that
has been getting me down. Yes – “this too shall pass”, but I have to be able to
deal with it in a smart and positive way.
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